BASICS

Understanding the abbreviations and terminologies used in affiliate marketing can be likened to starting a Job with the right tool. A lot of sites I visited when I started the journey into affiliate marketing had a lot of abbreviations without the full meaning of the abbreviation side by side. Hence I have compiled a list of abbreviations and their meanings to give you a head start.

Here are some of the abbreviations and terminologies used in affiliate marketing and their meanings

  • CPC or PPC: CPC means cost per click or pay per click. In this model, you are paid when a user clicks on an advertisement.
  • Ad: means advertisement
  • CPM: cost per thousand: you earn money online for every one thousand impressions i.e for every one thousand persons that view the ads on your page.
  • CTR: Click Through Rate is just a metric used to measure CPC(cost per click). It measures how many users see an ad and click on it.
  • CPA: means Cost Per Action. in this model you are paid when a user completes an action such as signup or free trials.
  • CPV: Cost Per View: this model is used for video ads. you earn money online each time a user views a video ad.
  • SEO: Search Engine Optimization is a process of improving your site to improve its visibility.
  • OBA: means online behavioral advertisement. It is a way of advertising in which as an affiliate, you target an internet audience based on their past behavior on the internet or based on how they used the internet.
  • ROI: means return on investment; it is the amount of money you make after investing in a program such as paid advertisement or campaigns, or email marketing.et.c. if the return on investment is negative it means that you made no profit and if it is positive, it means that you made profits.
  • Affiliate Link: this is a unique link that is assigned to an affiliate partner by an affiliate partner program. The link contains the affiliate ID or username to enable tracking.
  • Affiliate network: a place or service that connects advertisers and affiliate marketers(publishers) together. E.g impact.com.
  • Advertiser: according to collins dictionary, "a person or company that pays for a product, event or job to be advertised in a newspaper, in a television or on a newspaper. Note the advertising channels also includes the internet.
  • Click fraud: This is when one tries to inflate on increase the number of clicks an ad receives to make it look as though a lot of visits are made. The punishment for this is that one is banned from the ad network.
  • Conversion rate: the number of visitors or users who take a particular action. eg if 100 persons visit your site and 20 persons make a purchase, the conversion rate is 20%.
  • Impressions: Each time a visitor sees an ad on your page, it is called an impression.
  • Traffic source can be defined as every medium that sends a visitor to your webpage. E.g if you create content on quora.com and embed your link to a keyword and someone clicks on that link and is redirected to your page, you can say that quora.com is a traffic source.
  • Performance-based marketing: simply means that you get paid based on your performance. In other words, you get paid based on your results.
  • Click-through rate: indicates how many persons saw your advertisement on your page and clicked on it.
A word of encouragement; keep pushing through and don't give up. I know that it is not easy to start a project, a new business, or venture into a new niche . However, focusing on the challenges will not help. I know how many times I felt stranded and angry but whenever I think of my daughter and wife, I get the courage to continue. please don't give up. Cheers