Linkwise shortlisted in the top affiliate networks in Europe!
Thanks to the trust and overwhelming support of our affiliates, Linkwise has been shortlisted as one of the top European Affiliate Networks, in the European Performance Marketing Awards!
Glossary
A
Advertiser (or Merchant)
A company with a website where users can make some kind of transaction. Most times this is a purchase (in which case the advertiser’s website is an e-shop) but it can also be other kinds of action like completing an order form, creating an account, registering for the newsletter etc.
Affiliate
Any individual or company that maintains a website through which they are able to send visitors to an advertiser’s website through links (banners or text links). An affiliate can also be someone with the ability to send visitors to the advertiser through Pay per Click (PPC) campaigns he/she has created on various search engines or websites. The Affiliate does this in order to get paid by the advertiser a commission for each visitor that converts into a sale or lead.
Affiliate link
A link which contains the tracking code necessary to identify a visitor as coming from an affiliate. Every affiliate link contains the affiliate’s unique ID that identifies that affiliate on the network. Through affiliate links, it is possible to know which users came from which affiliates, so these affiliates can receive commission when some user converts into a sale or lead.
Affiliate Marketing
The term describes the relationship between the advertiser (also known as merchant) and the affiliate (also known as publisher) in which the latter sends visitors to the former’s website and gets paid only when these visitors convert into a specified action (usually a sale or lead).
Affiliate Network
An Affiliate Network like Linkwise Affiliate Network is the link between affiliates and advertisers. Networks provide Affiliate Marketing services like tracking, reporting, programme management, fraud detection, logistics, payments etc.
B
Banner
A kind of creative that can be placed on an affiliate’s website in order to drive clicks and send traffic to an advertiser’s site. Banners are usually available in multiple dimensions and formats like image (usually GIF), HTML or Flash.
Banner Rotator
A tool that allows affiliates to place multiple creatives of the same dimension in a single advertising spot. Every time a user visits the website, one of these creatives is shown to the user.
C
Clickbot
A software script designed to trace websites and automatically click on their links in order to discover all available webpages on the Internet. Clickbots are used primarily by search engines (Google, Bing etc.) to index new websites so they can be shown on search engine results.
Click-Through
The moment when a user clicks on a creative (banner or text link) to get transferred to the advertiser’s website.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
The number of times a creative was clicked on (clicks), divided by the number of times this creative was shown (impressions). For example, if a creative was shown to 100 visitors out of whom 5 clicked on it, this banner has a CTR of 5%.
Commission
The amount the advertiser pays to affiliates for each action coming from a user the affiliate sent.
Conversion
The "conversion" of a visitor to client, i.e. when a visitor performs an action that has value to the advertiser like purchase, registration etc.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of visitors that perform the action of value, e.g. if 1 out of 100 visitors makes a purchase, the website’s conversion rate is 1%.
Cookie
A text file stored on the user’s computer that can hold information necessary to assign a commission to an affiliate like affiliate ID, affiliate programme, banner ID etc. Cookies have a specified lifetime during which the affiliate earns commission for the purchases or other actions this user makes on the advertiser’s website.
Cost per Action (CPA)
A model of payment for online advertising where the advertiser pays only when an action of value (as specified by the advertiser) takes place, e.g. a sale, registration etc. This payment method lies at the heart of Performance Marketing and especially Affiliate Marketing.
Cost per Click (CPC)
A model of payment for online advertising where the advertiser pays when a click occurs on one of their creatives (banners, text links etc.) CPC is usually found in advertising networks like Google Adwords and websites like Facebook etc.
Cost per Sale (CPS)
A type of CPA payment where the action is a sale.
Cost per Thousand or Cost per Mille (CPM)
A model of payment for online advertising where the advertiser pays for every thousand impressions of one of their creatives (usually banners).
Creatives
The available banners and text links for promoting an affiliate programme, which the affiliate can place on his/her website in order to send users to the advertiser. Banners are usually available in multiple dimensions and formats like image (usually GIF), HTML or Flash.
Custom Landing Page
Some affiliate programmes allow affiliates to change the default destination URL of a creative and as a result redirect users to another page of the advertiser’s website. This destination URL is then called a Custom Landing Page.
D
Datafeed
A file (usually in CSV or XML format) which contains information for the products or services of an advertiser. These usually include URL, name, description, photos and other information about each product. Affiliates use datafeeds to enrich their website’s content with useful information that will help them drive a sale and make it easier to deep link, i.e. send the user directly to a product’s page instead of the advertiser’s homepage.
Deep linking
A link that sends the user to a webpage inside the advertiser’s website (i.e. not the homepage). This can be a product page, category page or information page.
E
Earnings per Click (EPC)
EPC is calculated by dividing commission with number of clicks and multiplying by 100 and effectively shows how much money per 100 clicks the affiliate earns from a specific affiliate programme or in total. Even though affiliate programmes usually don’t pay per click, this index helps affiliates compare programmes to one another. For example, a large number of clicks with a low commission amount leads to a low EPC, which means the affiliate send lots of users to the advertiser but these users don’t convert into actions.
G
Geo-Targeting
Targeting an affiliate programme based on the users’ geographical location. For example, affiliates might be allowed to use a programme’s creatives only for users from a specific country, e.g. Greece.
Graphic Interchange Format (GIF)
A file type suitable for relatively small images/banners. It can also be animated, i.e. a series of GIF images creating an animated banner.
I
Image Creatives
A programme’s creatives that are images (usually GIF Images).
Impressions
The number of times a banner or website was shown to any visitor. More specifically, this index shows how many times a specific webpage or banner was requested from the server and therefore (in theory) how many times it was viewed by users.
L
Landing Page
The webpage to which the user is transferred after clicking on an online advertisement. This webpage can be any page on the advertiser’s website but very often it is a page specially designed to elaborate on the products or offers mentioned in the ad and aims to convert visitors into clients (conversion). An affiliate can sometimes choose the landing page of a creative (see Custom Landing Page).
Lead
Literally, a lead is a person that has expressed interest in the services or products of a company and therefore has a high chance of becoming a client of this company. In Affiliate Marketing, the term “lead” is used to describe an action (besides a sale) as set by the advertiser for which the affiliate is paid a commission. A lead can be the submission of an online form, registration to an online service etc. A “per lead” affiliate programme is one that pays out a commission to affiliates for an action that is not a sale.
P
Pay-per-Click (PPC)
see CPC.
Pay-per-Sale (PPS)
see CPS.
Product Feed
see Datafeed.
Publisher
see Affiliate.
R
Real-time
Live statistics, meaning there is no delay between when an action (e.g. click, sale etc.) happens and when it becomes available in the network’s reports.
Rotator
see Banner Rotator.
S
Sub-ID
One or more parameters (in the form of subid1, subid2 etc.) that an Affiliate can add to an Affiliate link. By assigning different values to the Sub-ID parameter(s) the affiliate can know the difference in performance when placing a link in different positions. For example, an affiliate might use a single affiliate link as a landing page of several keywords in an Adwords campaign. By adding a different Sub-ID value to each of the keywords, the affiliate can know the individual performance of each keyword as opposed to the total performance of the affiliate link.
T
Terms & Conditions
The terms & conditions that someone must read and agree upon before becoming an affiliate of the Linkwise Affiliate Network. Among others, these terms describe the affiliate’s liabilities, method of payment, copyright issues etc.
Text link
A simple text anchor link. An affiliate might prefer to use a text link instead of a banner in cases where he/she wants to insert an affiliate link inside an article, blog post etc.