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Glossary of Industry Terms

Listed here are some of the terms used in the Affiliate community and on this site.

2nd Tier	An additional amount of money paid to an affiliate by Paid On Results for recruiting other affiliates who go on to promote merchant's services or products.
Abuse	Describes attempted misuse and fraudulent activity on the Network. This can be Affiliate Fraud (see below) or unethical methods of promotion.
Abuse Policy	Our policy on the misuse of the Network
Ad Ware	Describes software sometimes installed invisibly while a computer user is installing 'shareware'. It consists of advertising components that can collect personal information from the viewer's computer. This is seen by the affiliate industry as unethical and is strictly prohibited on Paid On Results.
Advertiser	Same as Merchant.
Affiliate	Site owner who promotes products or service in return for payment once an action has been completed.
Affiliate Fraud	Illegal activity by an affiliate in attempt to gain commission they didn't legitimately earn.
Affiliate Link	A hyperlink with unique tracking code used to promote merchants products or services.
Affiliate Marketing	Marketing system for a merchant (advertiser) whereby you only pay for confirmed sales/leads.
Affiliate Manager	Full or Part-time employee of the merchant who runs and helps build affiliate program in conjunction with the staff at Paid On Results
Affiliate Network	A company that facilitates the sale of products and/or services for a merchant via affiliates, acting as a trusted 3rd party providing software, help and support for both affiliate and merchant.
APM (Affiliate Partner Manager)	APM - when an affiliate which you referred joins Paid On Results you become their APM. You earn a percentage of their earnings, while they are an active affiliate. You can help that affiliate if you wish by contacting them and giving them advise on affiliate marketing, but only if you want to. You can simply leave them to it and earn. But by helping them, you increase their commission and therefore increase your own commission.
Banners	Graphic advertisement of various sizes. These can be static or animated and usually come in standard sizes for easy addition into existing sites. Measured in pixels the most common sizes are 468x60, 120x60. Other less common standards are 234x60, 120x600, 125x125, 88x31. Formats are .jpg and .gif for static banners and .gif and .swf (Flash) for animated banners.
Brand Bidding	The practice of brand bidding is to use the brand or product names of a particular merchant to generate traffic. Sometimes affiliates can be given permission by the merchant to brand name bid. Sometimes a merchant will make a decision to ban brand name bidding to all, expect for a small group of affiliates, this decision is entirely down to the merchant. You can contact individual merchant's via our Message Center if you wish to discuss this topic with them.
Call back	A figure that shows the ratio of actual clicks made on a banner in relation to its number of impressions. Some advertisers are willing to pay for Click through's rather than actual sales/conversions.
Click through	A figure that shows the ratio of actual clicks made on a banner in relation to its number of impressions. Some advertisers are willing to pay for Click through's rather than actual sales/conversions.
Conversion Rates	The sum set by the merchant payable to the affiliate for the successful conclusion of a sale by an affiliate. This commission can occur at any time within the duration of the cookie.
Commission	An additional amount of money paid to an affiliate by Paid On Results for recruiting other affiliates who go on to promote merchant's services or products.
Commission Reversal	A commission payable to an affiliate, deemed to be incorrect, usually because the item was returned by the purchaser for a refund. Very occasionally reversals are the result of attempted fraud by the purchaser.
Cookie	Small text file that stores (non-personal) information on the end users computer to help track sales from the merchant back to the affiliate. A message is sent back to the server each time the browser (with the affiliate's cookie) requests a page from the server.
Cookie Length	This variable is set by the merchant and details how long a cookie will remain active. It can be anywhere from 1 hour to 999 days with 45-90 days being the norm.
CPA	When referred to in affiliate circles it generally means Cost Per Acquisition, i.e. what you calculate that you have had to spend through PPC or a banner campaign to achieve a sale. Confusingly it can can also stand for Cost per Action within the advertising world.
CPC	Meaning Cost Per Click. Certain search engines allow advertisers to pay to achieve top listings in the search results at a specified cost per click. To do this you will want to target pay per performance search engines that have the broadest reach and can drive traffic for minimal cost a click in order to best use your SEO resources. Begin by selecting the search terms that are relevant to your online business, set what you would like to pay on a per-click for each term. The higher you 'bid', the higher in the search results your business is likely to be. This is generally seen as an economical method to rank high on search engines, augmenting search engine directory submissions.
CPL	Meaning Cost Per Lead. A more specific form of cost per action where a visitor provides information on an advertiser's site or interacts with a rich media ad as a sales lead.
CPM	Meaning Cost Per Thousand. This is an industry standard for selling banner adverts. The M is from the Roman for thousand.
Creative	See Banners.
CSV	The CSV ("Comma Separated Value") file format used to exchange data between applications. This file format is the standard way in which we accept product feeds from merchant's.
CTR	Meaning Click Through Rate, this percentage number represents the amount of times a banner has actually appeared on pages (impressions) divided by the amount of times it was actually clicked on. So if it showed 1000 times and was clicked on 5 times its CTR would be 0.5%
Custom Tracking ID	A Custom Tracking ID allows you to see if a certain user has bought something via your link, you can do this by putting in a username or email address (in fact anything that lets you match the tracking ID to your own user database). This can be anything you like up to 256 characters in length, however you cannot have any spaces. Custom Tracking ID is also known as Network Tracking ID, EPI, Click Reference, NWK, LID and SID depending on who you ask and what other networks call them, but they are all the same thing, just some have more limitations than others.
Dialer	Software that dials a phone number. Some dialers connect to local Internet Service Providers and are beneficial as configured. Others connect to toll numbers without user awareness or permission. Highly unethical and strictly illegal within our network.
Deep Linking	These are links that go directly to a site's interior pages and are used extensively to enhance usability enabling users clicking on banners and text links to quickly find the product page they desire.
Dedicated landing page	A Merchant creates a page as an entry point for the exclusive use of affiliate networking leads, i.e. all affiliate links and banners (with the exclusion of deep links) lead to this page. It is generally a duplicate of the home page with the important distinction of not having a telephone number on it. This means that affiliates will not be bypassed and are more likely to promote this merchant over similar sites.
Domains & Sub Domains	With Paid On Results you can create sub domain names and also add your own domain names to our system, allowing you to point these to merchants. This means you have an easy to enter URL, which can be used in emails or though offline promotion. Any visits are logged and sales tracked as normal.
EPC	Earnings Per 100 clicks. To find an EPC figure for a merchant this is the calculation - PROFIT / CLICKS = EPC.
EPM	Earnings Per 1000 clicks.
Iframe	An inline frame inside a normal HTML document, which embeds another HTML document.
Impression	When a banner is actually shown within a visitors browser.
Integrated	The process of linking a merchant's sales site into the tracking used to record activity and sales through network generated leads.
Local cookie	Designed to eliminate multi-network tracking issues and allow a merchant to know which network sent a sale/lead. The local cookie tags which network/advert the customer has come from and will show the call back based on the information stored within the local cookie. When set-up correctly the local cookie is as reliable as the network cookie and allows merchants to spend money on other campaigns such as PPC, CPM and so on while only ever paying the source responsible for the final sale/lead.
Links	Banners, buttons, text links, product feeds or any graphical content that affiliates can use to promote the products or services of a merchant.
Merchant	Company who has a product or service to sell also known as an advertiser.
Message center	A facility within the Affiliate control panel that allows messages to be received directly from the merchant's that the affiliate is signed up to and sent from a similar control panel at the merchant's side.
Network cookie	'Network Cookie' is a term used by Paid On Results to describe how a network of sites are joined in a virtual network for tracking sales. Basically they all have independent links, tracking, cookies and so on but we can view and track sales across these independent links and cookies. What this means for the affiliate is that some merchant's will link sites together in order that you make commission from sales for other sites they own or might promote. In short you make sales if someone leaves one of these sites and visits one of the others, also the cookie is set so if they direct mail existing customers about the other sites in the network cookie, the afiliate also benefits from these sales.
Network tracking ID	See 'Custom Tracking ID'
On topic	Describes a site that is relevant in its theme to a merchant's site. i.e. a site called Myphotos.co.uk might be on topic for Nikon.com.
Open policy	Describes the relationship between affiliates and merchant's on Paid On Results. By allowing and encouraging dialogue, profits can be maximised and misunderstandings kept to a minimum.
Overriding commission	This is the commission payable by the merchant to the Network as the result of a concluded sale by an affiliate.
Payment threshold	The minimum commission amount that an affiliate must earn to get paid.
PPC	With Pay Per Click an advertiser pays an agreed amount for each Click through to the merchant's's site.
Parasite ware	A general term for software that you may download, knowingly or unknowingly. Often bundled with other applications, and downloads like music sharing software and unknowingly installed 'ad ware', 'scum ware' or 'spy ware' displays unwanted advertising and harvests personal information for marketing companies. Parasite ware can change the content of the web sites you visit by adding links that the webmaster did not authorize. Lastly scum ware steals the commissions webmasters depend on to keep their sites running. Their sole purpose is to worm their way onto your computer and assault you with advertising, steal commissions from the web sites where you do your on-line shopping, and transmit your private information to marketing companies. Highly unethical and strictly illegal within our network.
Performance Report	The Merchant Performance Report exists to give an affiliate an idea of the general performance of individual merchant's on Paid On Results. We should stress this only provides a general picture of performance. For example if a merchant is running a free promotion and giving affiliates commission for this, it will pull down the average commission and basket size for that merchant's other products, this is unavoidable and is the reason why you should ideally test for yourself how a merchant performs for you. Some merchant's are not included in certain reports, e.g. a merchant offering a lead based commission will not show in the Basket Size report.
Pop-ups and Pop-unders	Pop-ups generally refer to banner ads that are not embedded within a page but as the name suggests pop up on the viewers screen when a page has been loaded. These are seen by the majority of web viewers as an irritation and a variety of software solutions have been developed to rid the viewer of these annoyances. Pop-unders are similar except that the ad will appear in a window under the current active window. We prohibit the use of pop-ups or pop-unders within our network.
Product feed	A method of page design that allows Affiliates to quickly and easily create web pages that are populated using scripts that draw products from databases while offering the affiliate precise control over page design and layout. Affiliates insert product feeds into their existing web pages allowing seamless visual integration of merchant's products into affiliate sites. Traditionally an affiliate would setup a link to the merchant, and the visitor leaves the site, whereas if the affiliate has a product feed in place the visitor stays on their web site retaining a potential repeat customer.
Program	The term is normally used to describe an account set up by an affiliate to sell the product or products of an individual merchant. If the commission rate is the same across the range of that merchant's products then they would all be included within a single program. If however the commission differed for each product within that merchant's range a separate program for each product is required.
Program management	The control area where an affiliate can find and add links and banners from merchant's to their site, request to join new Merchant programs and make general changes to their programs.
Publisher	Same as affiliate.
Referral	When a recommendation is made and a visitor arrives at a merchant site as a result of this recommendation.
Reversal	When a sale is not concluded. Usually when the sale has been either fraudulent or perhaps returned merchandise.
Reversal rate	Reversal rate is a percentage figure indicating how many valid sales any merchant has made against how many sales have been reversed by them.
Revenue Report	Accessed within the affiliate control panel (affiliate login) it contains a summary table of all the merchant's currently signed up by an affiliate. This offers the Affiliate a comprehensive suite of tools and reports to allow marketing campaigns to be monitored and adjusted.
ROI	Return On Investment.
SEO	Search Engine Optimisation. Getting high listings within search engines can make a huge difference to traffic to a Merchant's site. Many Affiliates specialise in knowing how to get good listings within a particular business sector and within specific search engines. This know how is one of the reasons that merchant's often sell more of their product through Affiliate links than through their own hard to find sites. In the shifting sands of the Search Engine world smart Merchant's know that paying a commission to an Affiliate can be an easy and reliable way to generate new sales.
Scum ware	A browser add-on which allows it to highlight words in web pages so that upon clicking a menu appears asking if the user wants to go to an advertiser's site. Often downloaded unconsciously when downloading files from file sharing sites. This is highly unethical and totally outlawed on Paid On Results. Also see parasite ware.
Stats	Abbreviation for Statistics - An umbrella term meaning information that is available to merchant or affiliates regarding user sessions, sales, leads and myriad other useful marketing data.
Spy ware	See parasite ware.
Tracking	The method used for monitoring how people move from page to page within a merchant's web site (through the use of cookies) and ultimately to make purchases. Reliable tracking is vital to the successful payment of affiliates for the sales made by them.
Trojan	Any program with a hidden intent. Trojans are one of the leading causes of breaking into machines. If you pull down a program from a chat room, new group, or even from unsolicited e-mail, then the program is possibly trojaned with some subversive purpose. The word Trojan can be used as a verb: To trojan a program is to add subversive functionality to an existing program. For example, a trojaned login program might be programmed to accept a certain password for any user's account that the hacker can use to log back into the system at any time. Root kits often contain a suite of such trojaned programs. Highly unethical and strictly illegal within out network.
Virtual network	A group of web sites that are owned or managed by a single merchant. These are generally ideal for implementing a network cookie.
Visitor	Any person, or user that clicks on a Link to a merchant's Web site from an Affiliate's Web site optimisation.
Void	Commission reversal for a sale that is later rescinded by the merchant. This may be because the merchant believes the sale to be fraudulent or a duplicate transaction or for returned merchandise.
Void Rate	Commission reversal for a sale that is later rescinded by the merchant. This may be because the merchant believes the sale to be fraudulent or a duplicate transaction or for returned merchandise. On Paid On Results - When a merchant needs to void a Pending Sale, they must supply a reason for every void sale. These are monitored by us and if unclear we will contact the merchant. If you are unhappy with a reason given, please contact us. As a network we don't like Void Sales, as it means we (also) never made commission. This reason given by the merchant is available to affiliates via the Revenue Report, but is not a default column (due to size of the table),to see it simply click All Information'on the table layout or'Customise Table'(selecting the Order Notes). Over in the Overview Report, you can Customise your table to include your personal Void Rate %, Number of Void Sales and Commission Value of Void Sales. In this report you have 2 tables, a by date table and by merchant, so you can see what is going on either way. If you see a high void rate for a date, click that date to see what merchant's made up that void rate, and then you can even click the Commission value (in the Void column) to be taken to the Revenue report and view the reasons. For a Network wide void rate per merchant try our Performance Reports. You can view Void Rates per merchant over a period of time (which you select), but as with any of the Performance Reports we offer, it is simply a guide. If you are about to promote a new merchant, don't be instantly put off by a High Void Rate in the Performance Report, please do contact the merchant, there may well be reasons for the high void rate. This is especially valid for financial merchant's. For example the affiliates sending traffic to the merchant may not be sending the right traffic, whereas if you talk to the merchant you may be able to send the right traffic and therefore not suffer the same Void Rates.