CPA Network & Affiliate Terms You Should Know.

Posted on September 11, 2006 in Affiliate Information  

I know everyone out there hears tons of acronyms everyday in their normal work and online chat. This article is to bring some clarity for those entering the CPA Affiliate market. I will go over some terms and abbreviations and explain what they mean. This will help you in looking at your reports from CPA networks and just gain a better understanding of the market and terms they use.
 

Advertiser (Merchant) – A person, corporation, or website wanting to promote or sell something. With each promotion or sale the advertiser will provide payment.
 

Publisher (Affiliate) – A person, corporation, or website willing to promote or sell something for compensation.
 

CPA – Cost Per Action, This is the Amount you are paid for the action as a Publisher (Affiliate), or the amount you pay for the action as an Advertiser (Merchant). Action can mean information (email, name, address, etc..) or can be a purchase of an item.
 

PPC – Pay Per Click, This is a term used more for advertisers and is the amount the Advertiser (Merchant) is paying when someone clicks on an ad to their site.
  

EPC – Earnings Per Click, This is the amount you are paid per click as a Publisher (Affiliate). This comes in handy when you are running a PPC campaign to promote a CPA offer. You can compare your EPC to your PPC if your EPC is larger than your PPC you are making money. If your network doesn’t provide EPC (most do) you just take the amount made divided by the number of clicks on the ad.

Lead – The Information entered or sale complete for you (Publisher (Affiliate)) to get paid for a CPA offer you are running. Example - You run a CPA campaign for Free Ipod on your site where you get paid when someone goes to that site and enters their email. When the person enters their email this is called a Lead for which you are paid.
 

CTR – Click Thru Ratio, usually a percentage, CTR is the ad impressions divided by the clicks. Example If an ad is shown 50 times and is clicked 10 the CTR is 20%.  
 

Incentive – Publisher (Affiliate) Offering something in return for an action. Many networks allow you to provide incentives to the user for generating a lead. This can be in the form of a product, membership or cash in return for them generating the lead. (Please check with your CPA network manager to make sure incentives are allowed for the CPA.) 
 

Sub ID (Tracking ID) – This is a way to track which users generated a lead or which of your sites the user generated a lead from. This way you get more detailed reports of where or who the lead came from. Example - When using an incentive CPA that you reward the member for signing up, you can use this feature to find out which of your members completed the action and they can be properly compensated.
 

Referral – When a Publisher (Affiliate)  refers a person to a CPA Network. Most CPA networks offer some form of compensation for referring other Publishers (Affiliates) to their network. This is usually a small percentage of their earnings.
 

I hope this helps clarify some of the terms that are used often by CPA Networks and Affiliates.
 

If you have suggestions or questions for an upcoming CPA Affiliate article just leave a comment with that suggestion or question and we will do our best to cover it.



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Comments

One Response to “CPA Network & Affiliate Terms You Should Know.”

  1. John on February 4th, 2008 5:22 pm

    Thank you for the definitions.

    I was looking for the proper meaning of ‘incentivized’. I searched in Google and your site came up.

    Now I understand.

    By the way, I’ve just noticed you are with ‘NeverblueAds’. I’ve just been accepted in the program today. In fact, it’s the reason I needed to look up the word.

    Best wishes,

    John

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