Affiliate marketing glossary

October 25, 2026

45 traffic and affiliate terms in plain English: from sources and payment models to metrics, tracking and short video.

A

Affiliate network (CPA network)

A middleman between advertisers and publishers. It collects offers, issues tracking links, counts conversions and handles payouts.

Agency ad account

An ad account issued by an agency or an official platform partner. Billing goes through the agency, and limits and support are usually better than on a personal account.

Approval rate (approve)

The advertiser confirming a lead. The approval rate shows what share of leads were accepted as valid and will be paid.

Auto-posting

Scheduled publishing of videos to many channels at once. The software posts the videos, captions and links by itself. More on the auto-posting page.

B

Bans and moderation

Moderation is the platform checking videos and ads against its rules. A ban is a restriction or block on a post, account or ad account for breaking those rules.

C

Channel network

A group of channels on one topic run in parallel. More channels and videos mean more chances to land in recommendations. More on the channel network page.

click_id

A unique ID for one click. Your tracker puts it into the link in place of the {click_id} macro, then uses it to tie a sign-up or sale to its source. Build a link with click_id in the UTM link builder.

Conversion

The target action you drive traffic for: a sign-up, a form fill, a purchase. The word also means the share of people who took it (see CR).

CPA

Cost per action. It names both a payment model, where the affiliate is paid for an action (sign-up, order, deposit), and a metric: spend ÷ number of actions. Calculate it in the ROI calculator.

CPC

Cost per click. Spend ÷ number of clicks. Ad platforms also use the term for the pay-per-click model.

CPL

Cost per lead. Spend ÷ number of leads. For offers that pay per form fill or sign-up, this is the main metric.

CPM

Cost per mille, the price of a thousand impressions. Spend ÷ impressions × 1,000. CPM shows how expensive the auction is across sources and geos.

CPS

Cost per sale. The affiliate is paid only for a paid order, usually a fixed amount or a share of the order value.

CR

Conversion rate. The share of people who take the next step: from click to lead, from lead to sale. Measured in percent.

Creative

Ad material: a video, image, banner or text. CTR and click price depend on the creative first of all.

CTR

Click-through rate. Clicks ÷ impressions × 100%. Shows how well a creative or video grabs people.

D

Deposit

A customer's first top-up in the advertiser's service. Many offers pay per deposit, and a sign-up without a top-up is not paid.

E

Engagement rate (ER)

Likes, comments and shares ÷ views × 100%. In short video it shows which videos the platform is more willing to push further.

EPC

Earnings per click. Revenue ÷ clicks. If EPC is above CPC, the source makes money.

G

Geo

The country or region you need traffic from. Payouts, click prices and offer rules depend heavily on geo.

H

Hold

The period an affiliate network keeps an earned payout on hold. The advertiser checks lead quality during that time, and after the hold the money can be withdrawn.

Hook

The first 1–3 seconds of a video that stop the scroll: a question, a result, an unusual shot. More in the article on the hook in the first seconds.

L

Landing page

The offer page where a visitor fills a form, signs up or buys. The click → lead CR depends on it.

Lead

A person who left contact details or signed up. Not a customer yet, but they have shown interest.

LTV

Lifetime value: how much one customer brings in over the whole relationship. It tells you how much you can afford to pay for a lead.

M

Media buyer

A specialist who buys traffic on ad networks: launches campaigns, tests creatives, manages the budget and watches profitability. More on the paid traffic page.

Media buying

Buying ads on paid sources: Facebook and Instagram, TikTok Ads, Google Ads, Telegram Ads. More on the paid traffic page.

O

Offer

An advertiser's deal with its terms: what you promote, which action pays, how much, which geos and which traffic sources are allowed.

Organic traffic

People who arrive without paying for impressions: from recommendations, search, subscriptions. In short video these are the videos the platform shows to viewers on its own.

P

Pixel

An ad platform's code on your site. It reports visitor actions to the ad account, and the algorithm learns to find similar people.

Postback

A server-to-server request from an affiliate network or site to a tracker with the click_id and payout. The postback ties a sign-up or sale to a specific click. More on the traffic analytics page.

Prelander

An in-between page before the landing page: an article, review or quiz. It warms the visitor up and explains why the offer matters to them.

Prepaid budget

The ad budget is funded upfront, before campaigns launch. Spend runs only within the amount paid in.

R

RevShare

A payment model where the affiliate gets a share of the revenue from referred customers for as long as they pay. Payouts are spread over time and depend on LTV.

ROAS

Return on ad spend. Revenue ÷ ad spend × 100%. A ROAS of 100% means you got back what you spent.

ROI

(Revenue − spend) ÷ spend × 100%. The main answer to whether a source pays off. An ROI of 0% means you broke even. Calculate it in the ROI calculator.

S

Scaling

Growing volume after a successful test: more budget, channels, creatives or new geos. You scale what already pays off.

Split test

Comparing two or more variants under equal conditions: creatives, landing pages, captions. The winner is the variant with the better CR or ROI on enough volume.

Sub-id

Extra parameters in an affiliate link: sub1, sub2 and so on. They carry the click_id, channel or creative so you can see them later in stats and postbacks.

T

Tracker

A system that records every click, issues a click_id, accepts postbacks and reports stats by source, campaign and creative.

Traffic arbitrage

Buying or attracting traffic and selling it for more: you send people to someone else's offer and earn a payout per action. Common in CIS markets as a name for affiliate media buying. More on the affiliate traffic page.

U

UBT

Short for "conditionally free traffic", a term from Russian-speaking affiliate marketing. People come from TikTok, YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels recommendations. Nobody pays the platform for impressions; the money goes into content and work. More in the article on UBT traffic.

Uniquification

Making a separate version of a video for each channel: its own hook, edit, subtitles, sound and caption. One source video becomes many different posts.

UTM tags

The utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, utm_content and utm_term parameters at the end of a link. Your site and analytics use them to see where a visitor came from. Build a link in the UTM link builder.

V

Vertical

A group of offers on one theme, for example e-commerce, online education, finance, mobile apps or dating. Each vertical has its own rules, audience and payouts.

Where to use this

You can run the metrics from this glossary on your own numbers in the ROI, CPA and EPC calculator. The UTM link builder puts together a link with UTM tags and click_id. In the Traffic Howl dashboard these metrics are calculated automatically from postbacks, for every channel and campaign.