Glossary

Key terms and definitions used in affiliate marketing and tracking.

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Campaign: The core tracking unit that connects a traffic source to landing pages and offers. Each campaign has a unique tracking URL that records visitor data.
Click ID: A unique identifier generated for each visit. The click ID travels through the funnel and is used to attribute conversions back to the original click.
Conversion: A desired action completed by a visitor, such as a purchase, sign-up, or lead submission. Tracked via postback (S2S) or pixel.
CPA (Cost Per Action): A pricing model where you earn a fixed amount for each qualifying action (conversion). Common in affiliate marketing.
CR (Conversion Rate): The percentage of visitors who complete a conversion. Calculated as (Conversions ÷ Visits) × 100.
CTR (Click-Through Rate): The percentage of visitors who click through from a landing page to an offer. Calculated as (LP Clicks ÷ Visits) × 100.

EPC (Earnings Per Click): Average revenue earned per visit. Calculated as Total Revenue ÷ Total Visits. A key metric for comparing campaign profitability.

Flow: A set of rules that determine which landing page and offer combination to show each visitor. Flows enable geo-targeting, device targeting, and conditional routing.

Lander (Landing Page): A pre-sell page shown before the offer. Landers warm up traffic, pre-qualify leads, and typically increase conversion rates.
LP Click: A click on a call-to-action element on a landing page that sends the visitor to the offer page. Tracked via the {offer_url} redirect.

Offer: The affiliate product or service being promoted. An offer has a destination URL, a payout, and belongs to an affiliate network.

Postback (S2S): A server-to-server callback URL fired by the affiliate network when a conversion occurs. It passes the click ID and payout back to the tracker for attribution. More reliable than pixel-based tracking.

ROI (Return on Investment): A profitability metric. Calculated as ((Revenue − Cost) ÷ Cost) × 100. Positive ROI means profitable; negative means a loss.

S2S (Server-to-Server): A tracking method where conversion data is passed between servers via HTTP requests (postback URLs) rather than browser-based pixels. More accurate and not blocked by ad blockers.
Sub ID: Custom tracking parameters (sub1 through sub20) appended to campaign URLs. Used to pass data from the traffic source (zone ID, creative ID, keyword, etc.) into the tracker for granular reporting.

Token: A placeholder in URLs (like {click_id}, {offer_url}, {sub1}) that gets dynamically replaced with actual values when the URL is processed.
Traffic Source: The platform where you buy advertising — ad networks, social media platforms, search engines, or any other source of paid or organic traffic.

Unique EPC: EPC calculated using only unique visitors rather than total visits, giving a cleaner profitability picture when the same user visits multiple times.
Unique LP Click: An LP click counted only once per unique visitor, regardless of how many times they click the CTA on your lander.
Unique Visits: The number of distinct visitors, typically identified by IP + User Agent combination within a time window. Filters out repeat visits from the same user.