Online Marketing Glossary: Tracking Method
Tracking Method:
- The way a program tracks referred sales, leads, or clicks. The most common is by unique Web address for each affiliate or by embedding an affiliate ID number into the link that is processed by the merchant’s software.
This link is the lifeblood of affiliates. Some smaller networks base the tracking ID within the link on the user name of the affiliate. Larger networks with a greater number of affiliates use a unique user ID or website ID number to track links.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Merchant Account
Merchant Account:
- An account with a payment processor for settlement of credit card transactions. Any merchant that takes credit card orders must establish a merchant account.
Most e-commerce websites have logos of the payment processing companies they use that verify the security of using your credit card. The top companies that are used by most websites are VeriSign and Authorize.net.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Hybrid Model
Hybrid Model:
- An affiliate commission model that combines payment options (i.e., CPC & CPA).
Personally, I don’t know of any programs that use this model. All the programs I’ve encountered as an affiliate have used one model or the other. The only time I have seen this is when the program is run on multiple networks, so they run one model on one network and another model on the other.
While I don’t have first hand experience, I’ve been told that eBay offers a hybrid model.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Cost per Thousand
Cost per Thousand (CPM):
- The cost metric for 1,000 banner advertising impressions. The amount paid per impression is calculated by dividing the CPM by 1,000. For example, a $10 CPM equals $0.01 per impression.
I remember this being all the rage when I was in college about 6-7 years ago. Now a days there aren’t many programs that offer CPM payment terms, but there are some.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Cost per Sale
Cost per Sale (CPS):
- The term for advertising in which the advertiser pays only for those clicks where the user clicks through on the banner or ad and actually purchases a product on the advertiser’s site.
This is the model that most retail businesses use in their affiliate programs. Traditionally, LinkShare has been the network most associated with having retail offers, but the game is constantly changing. Many networks have retail offers with CPS models now.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
Online Marketing Glossary: Cost per Order
Cost per Order (CPO):
- The cost metric for each time an order is transacted.
This is what we do at PsPrint. Every time an order is placed, we calculate the commission based off this amount for the affiliate. Many retail programs are similar, putting the onus on the publisher to market the product and assist in making the sale.
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Glossary Definition From ABC’s of Online Marketing by Alexandra Wharton, Issue 22, Revenue Magazine
