Like any industry, affiliate marketing has its own terminology that can quickly leave the beginner confused. We have therefore collated a list of key terms that are specific to the industry as well as to Awin and provided simple definitions to help you navigate into the affiliate world.
Please note that being an inherently localised industry you may find that some regions use different terms for the same concept. We’ve therefore included, where relevant, the variations that you may come across in different parts of the affiliate world.
Please note that this article only includes the keywords from
K to X. The first part of the list that includes
A to J is available in part one of this article.
See -
The Essential Affiliate Marketing GlossaryKKeywordLLanding Page, Lead, Linked Accounts, Leakage, Linking Code, LinksMManual Commissions, Merchant/Advertisers, Merchant ID/Advertiser ID, MicrositeNNumber of Products, Network OverrideOOffline Orders, Online Fraud, Optimisation, Order ReferencePPage Source, Payment Level, Pop-under, Pop-up, Post Click, Post Impression, PNG, PPC, Product Feed, Publisher Directory, Publisher Tags, Paid to Publisher, Payment Progress, Payment ID, Pending, Program, PreviewQQuantityRReach, Real-Time, Rich MediaSSale, Script, Search Engine Position, Sectors, SEO, Shockwave, Subsectors, Site Placement, Sponsored Listings, Spyware, Standart TagsTTag Name, Tags, Tracking Tag, Tracking URL, Traffic, Transaction, Transaction ID, Transaction Date
Total InfluenceUUnique Users, URL, Uncleared- Waiting for advertiser to pay AwinWWeb-based, Web Optimisation, Web-portal, Webprints, Web ServicesXXML FeedK━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ KeywordKeywords are words or phrases that are commonly used by internet users in searches for a particular type of website, often providing a certain product/service or information.
L━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Landing PageThe specific web page that a visitor reaches after clicking a link.
LeadA lead is a piece of information that may be used later to provide a sale later on. This is normally a request for a quote, an order of a brochure, or the completion of a questionnaire.
Linked AccountsProgrammes can be linked in two ways:
- referrer credited
- advertiser credited
Both work by two or more accounts being linked. Once a publisher joins a programme, they are automatically joined to any linked accounts. This system should only be used as a backup to avoid leakage on a site, which may hinder the chances of a publisher being awarded the commission they deserve.
LeakageLeakage is the term used to describe mechanisms on an advertiser's website that result in the customers either purchasing in a non-trackable manner e.g/ over the phone, causing the customer to leave the site, or purchasing from an area of the site that the Publisher is not awarded sales on.
Linking CodeThis is a code that a publisher uses to link to an advertiser's website.
LinksA link is any form of getting the consumer to visit an advertiser's website. This is normally in the form of a graphical banner or text link.
M━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Manual CommissionsA provision of money to a publisher for sales that did not go through the normal validation procedure for whatever reason. Manual commissions can be used to fix errors in payments or give commissions to publishers for offline sales.
Merchant/Advertisers (also called Retailer, E-retailer, or Online Retailer)A website that rewards publishers for placing links to the advertiser on their own website, normally on a CPA basis. advertisers place ads and links to their products and services on other websites (publishers) through Awin and pay those publishers a commission for the resulting leads or sales.
Merchant ID/Advertiser IDAn Advertiser ID is how Awin tells each advertiser apart from our system. It is our unique reference.
MicrositeA microsite is a small interactive HTML or rich media advert that is often used as a pop-up on an advertiser's website. They are an effective way of engaging a visitor's attention, as they contain both interactive content and product information.
N━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Number of ProductsThe number of individual products purchased with your links during a certain period. This is only available for Advertisers that have product-level tracking enabled.
Network OverrideThis is the percentage charged to the advertiser for the network services. The standard amount is 30% and is calculated from the total amount of publisher commission for a set period of time.
O━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Offline OrdersAn offline order is an order which takes place outside of the normal shopping cart software, generally by telephone, fax or email. Advertisers that enable publisher commissions through offline sales are able to add manual commission to a publisher for generating a sale through an offline method.
Online FraudThis is a general term used for any scams that are run over the internet. Spyware is a type of online fraud as is "phishing", a technique used to illegally collect sensitive information from a user's PC, such as passwords or credit card details.
OptimisationThe process of prioritising certain creatives within a campaign in order to serve more impressions of those ads which have a high click-through rate. Some ad-serving solutions are able to do this automatically.
Order ReferenceA unique reference an advertiser uses for the sales/leads on their website.
P━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Page SourceThe HTML code that is written to describe the layout and contents of a web page.
Payment LevelAdvertiser's Payment Levels are an excellent way of giving your best publishers a bigger commission rate or longer tracking periods. They work by automatically promoting good publishers who meet targets you set to higher levels.
Pop-underA type of advertisement that is automatically displayed in a second smaller browser window behind the current window upon loading or unloading a normal web page. Pop behind advertisements tends to cost advertisers more since their visibility is higher but is considered less annoying than pop-ups by website visitors.
Pop-upA type of advertisement that is automatically displayed in a second smaller browser window upon loading or unloading a normal web page. Pop-up advertisements tend to cost advertisers more since their visibility is higher but are often considered to be annoying by website visitors since they are seen as obtrusive.
Post ClickAn action performed by a user on a web page that contains Spotlight, BBT or Webprint tags, where the visit is a result of having clicked on an ad. The user must click an ad served by the ad server to create tags that will access the advertiser's website and then perform an activity for it to be counted as a post-click activity.
Post ImpressionAn action performed by a user in an advertiser’s web page that contains Spotlight, BBT or Webprint tags after having seen an ad for the advertiser (that is, an impression of an ad has been served to the web user). The user must have viewed an ad served by the ad server which created the tags, and then visited the advertiser's website to perform an activity for it to be counted as a post-impression activity.
PNGPortable Network Graphics (PNG) is a bitmapped image format that employs lossless data compression.
PPCPPC stands for Pay Per Click which is a payment model used mainly by search engines and price comparison sites. If advertisers wish to bid on specific keywords, they select a list with each of the search engines. This means that if a user searches for one of the specified keywords, they will appear within the "sponsored listings" search results.
Product FeedA product feed is a data file of all advertiser's products from their website. It contains a variety of fields, such as the product ID, name, RRP, price, link to the offer page, image URL, and specifications.
Publisher DirectoryAwin's publisher directory features a profile for all publishers who are signed up to the network. Advertisers are then able to search the directory to find a specific publisher.
Publisher TagsThe code placed on a publisher’s website that sends a request to the publisher’s ad server for an ad.
Paid to PublisherCommission already received by a publisher.
Payment ProgressUsed to track the payment status of any individual transaction.
Payment IDA specific number is assigned to each payment.
PendingThe transaction has not yet been validated by the advertiser.
ProgramThe name of the advertiser.
PreviewA preview of what the Creative looks like.
Q━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ QuantityThe total number of sales generated during a certain period.
R━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ReachThe number of unique visitors that visited a site over the course of the reporting period; and is expressed as a percent of the universe for the demographic category. Also known as the unduplicated audience. Redirects when used in reference to online advertising, where one server assigns an ad-serving or ad-targeting function to another server, often operated by a third company. For instance, a Web publisher's ad management server might re-direct to a third party hired by an advertiser to distribute its ads to target customers; and then another re-direct to a "rich media" provider might also occur if the streaming video were involved before the ad is finally delivered to the consumer.
Real-Time No delay in the processing of requests for information. This excludes the time necessary for the data to travel over the internet.
Rich MediaA type of advertisement technology that often includes richer graphics, such as audio or video within the advertisement. Unlike static or animated GIF banner advertisements, rich media advertisements often enable users to interact with the banner without leaving the page on which it appears. Some popular types of rich media banners are created with HTML, Shockwave & Flash.
S━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SaleA sale is any purchase made on an advertiser's website.
SCRIPTFiles that initiate routines like generating Web pages dynamically in response to user input.
Search Engine PositionA site's search engine position is the site's placement on the results when a searcher enters common terms that relate to the website's content/business.
SectorsThe primary category the advertiser belongs to. The four sectors Awin uses to classify
an advertiser is Finance & Insurance, Retail & Shopping, Telco’s & Services, or Travel.
SEOSEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. It is a technique used to attempt to gain high rankings for an advertiser's website within the natural search areas on search engines such as Google.
ShockwaveA software plug-in that enables browsers to play multimedia animations. Some rich media advertisements require users to have this plug-in.
SubsectorsThe sub-category of each advertiser you are part of. Most advertisers will have multiple subsectors.
Site PlacementA complete description of an ad slot or a set of ad slots within a site. The site placement includes information about the size of the ad slots, pricing, placement, and website where they are located. Site placements can also be targeted.
Sponsored ListingsThis form of search engine advertising guarantees that your site will appear in the top results for the keyword terms you target. For Google, these results appear at the top and right of the results page.
SpywareA form of software that gathers information about a person or company without them giving "informed" consent.
Standard TagsBasic ad code tags consist of a simple image and click-through call. These tags can only be used to serve basic gif or jpeg images; they cannot be used for Rich Media of any description.
T━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Tag NameA tag assigned by the advertiser is typically used to help categorize the creatives by specific topics
TagsAn HTML command, embedded in the text of an HTML document, describes the document’s logical structure and behaviour and determines how the file will be displayed in browsers. These tags send the request for an ad to the ad servers.
Tracking TagA tracking tag is the piece of code that sits on the advertiser's website to enable Awin to report within the system when a sale has occurred.
Various fields of information are captured by the tracking tag, including total sale value, commission group codes, and voucher codes (if used).
Tracking URLURLs that are redirected through an ad server to enable click-throughs in a message to be counted.
TrafficTraffic to a website is essentially a measure of the number of visitors a website has during a set period. Website traffic can be increased through publisher marketing, search engine positioning, and other activities.
TransactionAn entry on the Awin system that results in a pending, declined or accepted commission. This is any lead or sale, whether duplicate or not.
Transaction IDA specific number assigned to each transaction.
Transaction DateThe date of purchase for the transaction.
Total InfluenceThe number of sales and leads for which a publisher has driven a click, in which either the said publisher, another Awin publisher, or another marketing channel won the transaction.
U━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Unique UsersUnique individual or browser which has either accessed a site (see unique visitor) or has been served with unique content and/or ads such as e-mail, newsletters, interstitials, or pop-under ads. Unique users can be identified by their user registration or cookies. Reported unique users should filter out robots.
URLUniform Resource Locator (URL) is the Internet "address" of a website or web page on the world wide web. For example, our site's URL is
http://www.adratesonline.com. A browser requires this information in its location box in order to load a web page.
Uncleared- Waiting for advertiser to pay AwinThe transaction has been approved, but the advertiser has not yet paid Awin.
V━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Validation DateThe date the advertiser validated the transaction.
Valid DomainA valid domain is a domain that the Awin system recognises as a valid confirmation page, from which code has been shown. This ensures that people cannot generate sales on our system without having gone through the advertiser's website.
Validating CommissionAwin asks that advertisers validate the commissions for their publishers manually, as this ensures that only valid commissions are validated, thus giving advertisers much more control over how much they pay their publishers.
Validation periodThe amount of time taken for a pending sale to be validated. A short validation period is a sign of a strong advertiser programme.
VisitorSimply someone who is viewing the website, normally from an advertisement, search engine, or from directly entering the URL.
VombaVomba is a type of adware. Once this is on a user's PC, it creates a huge amount of pop-ups and contextual adverts. They are notorious for underhand tactics to force installation onto a user's PC.
Voucher CodeA unique or single-use voucher code is a discount code delivered to a customer that can only be redeemed once by the specific individual it was sent to.
W━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Web-basedMeaning that no software is required to access an online service or function, other than a web browser and access to the internet.
Web OptimisationWeb optimisation refers to the process of improving a website for:
a) Slicker user journey resulting in increased conversion rates
b) Increase of natural search results position within search engine result's pages (SERPS)
An advertiser can use a variety of tools to optimise their website, including free analytics packages such as Google Analytics and recruiting third-party specialist agencies.
Web-portalA website or service that offers an array of resources and services, such as email, forums, search engine results, and online shopping.
WebprintsWebprint is the proprietary name for Tracer Tags in the Zego ad server system. A Webprint tag is a specific type of HTML tag that is used to track the activities of users that visit a given web page. The Webprint tag consists of an HTML image element and source attribute (<img scr>), which defines the location of a graphic file and requests a creative. Webprint tags request a 1x1 pixel GIF from the ad servers.
Web ServicesA Web service (also Web Service) is defined by the W3C as "a software system designed to support interoperable machine-to-machine interaction over a network". Web services are frequently just Web APIs that can be accessed over a network such as the Internet and executed on a remote system that is hosting the requested services.
X━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ XML FeedXML stands for "Extensible Markup Language" and this is a format that publishers can download all products for a particular advertiser. It is a generic structure that is displayed as a "tree" format and is a more complex file than a simplified CSV.
Please note that this article only includes the keywords from
K to X. The first part of the list from
A to J is available in part one of this article:
The Essential Affiliate Marketing Glossary
