Just as we are all a work in progress, so is this post — which I shall be updating.
Every human activity begets its own terminology and affiliate marketing has its own specialised vocabulary. It can be overwhelming. But it need not be. Arming oneself with a glossary is one of the first step.
One word, about organisation — it has been kept simple. The main entries are in bold followed by a short explanation about its meaning.
Presented below, The . . .
Jargon File of Affiliate Marketing.
- Affiliate — An intermediary who promotes a brand in order to earn a commission. In its best form, the affiliate serves as a guide who provides qualified advice on a product or service, usually a brand. The best practice is to provide the advice in the spirit of helpfulness, in the first place. Apart from the ethical values attached to the spirit of providing advice in good faith which is paramount, it is also a matter of value, value that is also an indexing value. Google only promotes products that benefit the community.
- Affiliate Link – A piece of identifying digital code used to attribute the sale to the affiliate to whom this identifier has been assigned by the brand. For example Amazon might assign a short string to a qualifying affiliate for use in their promotion.
- Best Practice — A set of practices that improves a particular action, usually applied to ethical standards of transparency in business. In affiliate marketing this applies most pertinently to disclosures — which informs someone clicking a link that may lead to a sale from which the affiliate may earn a commission. Best practices remove the perception of bad faith on the part of the seller, so that the buyer does not feel that the sale took place through subterfuge or manipulation.
- Brand — A commercial identity chosen by a company to market its products. For example, Coco Cola is a brand. Some brands such as Amazon are not products but services. It is also called a platform.
- Conversion — consider this an event, a point at which the audience decides to take an action — typically, a decision to purchase a product you are promoting.
- Commission — this what you earn from a brand when someone sends converting traffic to their site; the percentage will depend on the brand.
- Disclosure: advance declaration of the potential of an affiliate’s earning a commission resulting from clicking on a link for a product they are promoting. This forms part of the informed decision.
- Niche — a particular part of the overall market that sets it off from others; for example, health, wealth, relationships — these are separate niches.
- Platform — Refers to the collective of services available on a website that acts as a local system of economy — Amazon, for example. A platform may sell products or services or both. Alibaba is an example. The term can apply to banking or other commercial activities conducted through it. It s owned by a brand or an agency.
- ROI – Abbreviation of Return on Investment; usually expressed as a percentage of the initial investment on a project/product; naturally, the higher the ROI, the higher the profit; ROI’s vary according to the definition of profitability.
- SEO — Stands for search engine optimisation; it refers to the keywords and their ranking on Google; it is vital to getting indexed on Google for online marketing.
- URL — Stands for universal resource locater; it is a piece of code that identifies a website; however, it can be used broadly to identify and locate a digital object on the worldwide web.