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Affiliate marketing glossary

Terms you meet in affiliate programme terms and conditions, explained briefly and with an example.

A

  • Admin fee — A percentage of revenue the programme deducts before calculating RevShare commission, to cover its own costs.
  • Affiliate link — A link carrying the affiliate's ID, by which the programme recognises the players that affiliate referred.
  • Affiliate network — An intermediary that gathers offers from several programmes, so an affiliate works with several companies through one account and gets one payout.
  • Affiliate platform — The software a programme runs its affiliates on: links, player tracking, reports and commission calculation.
  • AML — The anti money laundering measures an operator must apply: checking players, monitoring unusual deposits and reporting suspicious transactions.
  • Attribution — The rule a programme uses to decide which affiliate a player belongs to when they clicked several affiliates' links.

B

  • Brand bidding — Buying search ads on queries that contain the operator's brand name. Many programmes forbid it for affiliates.

C

  • Churn — The share of players who stop playing in a period. High churn lowers the value of a RevShare deal.
  • Commission — What an affiliate programme pays an affiliate for the players they referred, under the model and rate in the contract.
  • Conversion rate — The share of visitors who take the next step: from click to sign up, or from sign up to first deposit. It measures traffic quality.
  • Cookie period — A browser record that remembers a player came through your link. The cookie period sets how long after a click a sign up can be credited to you.
  • CPA — A commission model in which the affiliate gets a fixed amount for each new player who meets the programme's conditions.
  • CPC — The price of one click in paid advertising. An affiliate buying traffic compares CPC with the commission one click brings.
  • CPL — A model in which the programme pays for a sign up (lead), whether or not the player deposits. Rare in betting.

F

  • FTD — A new player's first deposit. The most common condition for a player to qualify for CPA and the basic measure of an affiliate's results.

G

  • GGR — Gross gaming revenue: total player stakes less player winnings, before any deductions.

H

  • Hybrid model — A commission model that combines a fixed payment per player (CPA) with a share of revenue (RevShare), usually with lower amounts on both.

I

  • iGaming — The umbrella term for gambling over the internet: sports betting, online casino, poker and lottery games.
  • Incentivised traffic — Traffic in which the affiliate gives a player a reward for signing up or depositing. Programmes as a rule forbid it.

K

  • KYC — The identity check an operator must run on a player. Until a player passes KYC they often cannot withdraw, and the programme does not count them as qualified.

L

  • LTV — The total revenue a player brings the operator for as long as they play. It decides how RevShare compares with CPA.

M

  • Minimum payout — The smallest commission amount a programme pays out. A smaller amount usually waits for the next settlement period.

N

  • Negative carryover — A rule under which negative NGR from one month moves to the next and reduces commission until it is covered.
  • NGR — Net gaming revenue: gross revenue from players less bonuses, taxes and other costs. The RevShare rate applies to it.

P

  • Postback — A message the programme's server sends to the affiliate's server when a player does something important, such as a sign up or a first deposit.
  • PPC — Advertising paid per click, usually in search engines. In betting affiliate marketing it is tightly restricted.

Q

  • Qualified player — A player who meets the programme's conditions for a CPA payment: usually a first deposit above a minimum, sometimes also turnover or an identity check.

R

  • Retention — The share of players who keep playing after their first deposit. Under RevShare it affects how long players generate the revenue used to calculate commission.
  • RevShare — A commission model in which the affiliate earns a percentage of the net revenue their players bring the programme, month after month.

S

  • Self-exclusion — A measure by which a player blocks their own account for a period or permanently, to stop gambling.
  • Serbian gambling licence — The licence of the Serbian Games of Chance Administration for online gambling in Serbia. partners.rs lists only programmes of operators that hold one.
  • Sub-affiliate — An affiliate brought into a programme by another affiliate. The referrer earns extra commission, usually a percentage of the new affiliate's earnings.

T

  • Tiered RevShare — RevShare in which the rate rises with the affiliate's number of new players or revenue in a month.

W

  • White label — A ready made betting or casino platform a company launches under its own brand, on someone else's technology and often someone else's licence.