Glossary

Showing all terms

Ad fatigue

Creative

Decline in CTR/CVR as the same ad over-exposes the same audience.

Ad fatigue is the falling CTR/CVR pattern as a single ad creative reaches the same users repeatedly. Fatigue starts to bite at 3–5 average daily impressions per user; severe at 10+. Diagnosed by rising frequency + falling CTR over 2–3 weeks. Solution: rotate fresh creatives, expand audience pool, or pause and rest the audience. Native ads fatigue faster than display because the user is making an active click decision.

Example: Outbrain campaign at $400/day shows CTR dropping from 0.62% to 0.34% over 18 days at fixed audience size — operator launches 4 new creatives; CTR snaps back to 0.58% within 5 days.

See: frequency cap, creative, ctr

AdNow

Networks

Russian-origin native ad network with strong CIS and EE inventory.

AdNow is a Russian-origin native ad network founded in 2014. Inventory is concentrated in CIS countries (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan), Eastern Europe, India, and parts of LATAM. Lower CPCs than Taboola/Outbrain (often $0.01–$0.05 in tier-3 geos), looser compliance, and smaller publisher base. Used by nutra and crypto advertisers who can't get accepted on tier-1 networks. Sanctions complications since 2022 limit US-card payouts in some markets.

Example: Nutra weight-loss advertiser banned from Taboola moves a $200/day campaign to AdNow targeting Poland and Romania — clears at $0.04 CPC, with manual bid adjustment per publisher.

See: mgid, revcontent, taboola

Adsterra

Networks

Global ad network running push, pop, native, and direct-link formats.

Adsterra is a multi-format ad network founded 2013, second-largest in pop/push by spend after PropellerAds. Inventory spans nearly every country with concentrations in tier-2/3 markets. Notable for the 'social bar' format (an in-page push-style ad), 'direct-link' (a smartlink that routes to a relevant offer), and a self-serve advertiser dashboard. Anti-fraud is moderate — good operators still need their own IVT scrub.

Example: Dating affiliate runs Adsterra Social Bar in Vietnam at $0.0014 CPV — adds an aggressive bot-filter rule to drop sources with sub-3-second time-on-site, lifts CVR 38%.

See: push traffic, popunder, smartlink

Advertiser ID

Ad-tech

The numeric or string identifier a network assigns to an advertiser account.

Advertiser ID is the unique key a native network assigns each advertiser account (e.g. Taboola's advertiserId, Outbrain's marketerId). It surfaces in the ad-tracking URL of every click. Spy tools that scrape correctly can roll all the creatives from one advertiser into a single hub — that's the foundation of competitive intel.

Example: mediabuyer.site advertiser hub keys off Taboola advertiserId — one ID can have 400+ active creatives across 12 campaigns.

See: branding text, site id

Advertorial

Creative

An ad designed to read like an editorial article.

An advertorial is a long-form landing page styled to look like a journalist's article. Common in nutra, health, and finance verticals. Compliance teams at the major networks require visible 'Advertisement' or 'Sponsored' labels, but enforcement varies. Advertorials are how most direct-response native operators bridge the credibility gap between cold native traffic and a sales page.

Example: 'Local mom discovers wrinkle remover doctors don't want you to know about' — 1,800-word advertorial with stock photos, fake-comment section, and a CTA to a VSL. Outdated style, still ships volume in 2026.

See: prelander, lp, cloaking, vsl

Affiliate disclosure

Compliance & regulatory

Required statement that a publisher earns a commission from links.

Affiliate disclosure is the FTC-required notice that a page contains affiliate links earning the publisher a commission. Must be clear, conspicuous, and above-the-fold per the FTC Endorsement Guides. 'As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases' is the canonical example. We disclose at the section level on mediabuyer.site.

Example: Top of every product roundup on a comparison site: 'We may earn a commission when you buy through links on this page — at no cost to you.' Above the fold, plain language, FTC-compliant.

See: ftc, compliance

Affiliate manager (AM)

Ad-tech

Network-side rep who works directly with affiliates.

An affiliate manager (AM, sometimes 'rep') is the network-side employee who works with the affiliate on offer access, payout negotiation, troubleshooting, and offer wall recommendations. A good AM gets you bumped payouts ($35 → $42 on a CPL), early access to new offers, and faster scrub-dispute resolution. AM relationships are the single most underrated lever for new affiliates.

Example: Affiliate doing $300/day on MaxBounty asks AM for a payout bump on the auto-insurance offer; AM pulls last 30-day quality data, gets a $4/lead bump approved, ROI on the relationship is $1,200/month.

See: maxbounty, lead quality

AffiliateFix

Community & forums

Free affiliate-marketing forum — beginner-heavy.

AffiliateFix is the largest free affiliate-marketing forum, beginner-heavy, with paid 'iAmAffiliate' tier for premium content. Strong on SEO, native, pop, push. Signal-to-noise is lower than AffLIFT — lots of beginners asking the same questions and recruiters posting offers. Useful for free guides and broad ecosystem awareness.

Example: Beginner researching MGID best-practices reads 6 free AffiliateFix threads from 2023–2024 to assemble a basic campaign-launch checklist.

See: afflift, stm

AffLIFT

Community & forums

Premium affiliate-marketing community / forum.

AffLIFT is a paid private affiliate-marketing community ($20/month or annual), launched 2018 by 'Luke Kling' (formerly PeerFly). Replaced STM and AffPlaybook as the main paid forum after STM declined. Private follow-along threads (operators publicly running campaigns step-by-step), case studies, weekly contests. Higher signal-to-noise than free forums; mostly self-promotion-free.

Example: Operator publishes a 47-post 'follow-along' on AffLIFT documenting a $50→$5,000/day push-traffic campaign in CA dating, including LP screenshots and tracker exports.

See: stm, affiliatefix

Antivirus / consumer-security offers

Traffic & geos

McAfee/Norton-tier consumer-security affiliate vertical.

Antivirus is one of the longest-running affiliate verticals: McAfee, Norton, Bitdefender, Avast, Kaspersky. Front-end products $40–$120/year, payouts 30–50% revenue-share or $20–$45 CPA. Cyclical demand (post-breach news spikes). Compliance: claim-substantiation on threat-stat numbers (FTC settled with Vonix and others in past). Tier-1 native and Google search are the dominant channels.

Example: McAfee 1-year subscription affiliate runs Outbrain US 'security-news' advertorial at $0.28 CPC, $58 first-year AOV, 35% rev-share = $20.30 effective payout.

See: vpn

AOV

Metrics

Average order value — revenue per converting buyer.

AOV (average order value) is the average revenue from one converting customer. It's a key term in the breakeven CPA formula (AOV × margin = max profitable CPA). Lifting AOV via upsells, bundles, or higher-priced SKUs is one of the few levers that lets you outbid competitors at the auction without losing money.

AOV = revenue / converting orders

Example: Single-bottle skincare AOV of $39 with 60% margin = max CPA $23. Bundle 3-pack at $89 with same margin lifts max CPA to $53 — different campaign entirely.

See: cpa, ltv, margin

ASA (UK)

Compliance & regulatory

Advertising Standards Authority — UK self-regulator.

The ASA (Advertising Standards Authority) is the UK's self-regulating body for advertising, enforcing the CAP and BCAP Codes. Rules ban misleading claims, require substantiation for performance claims, and require clear identification of paid content. ASA rulings are public, named, and frequently shape UK platform-level policy. Affiliate operators in the UK monitor ASA rulings as a leading indicator of platform-level enforcement to come.

Example: ASA rules against a UK skincare advertiser in March 2026 over an unsubstantiated 'wrinkle-reducing' claim — ITV pulls the operator's ads within 48 hours; downstream affiliates pause UK traffic for a week to update creative.

See: compliance, ftc

ATT (App Tracking Transparency)

Tracking

Apple's iOS 14.5+ opt-in prompt for cross-app tracking.

ATT (App Tracking Transparency, iOS 14.5, April 2021) is Apple's opt-in prompt that requires apps to ask users for permission before tracking them across apps and websites. Opt-in rate: ~25% on average, with high variance by category (gaming 18%, news 35%, social 22%). Implementation: apps must call AppTrackingTransparency framework. Net effect: roughly halved the IDFA-based attribution accuracy in mobile UA.

Example: Mobile gaming UA campaign on Applovin sees CPA 'rise' from $4.50 to $6.80 after iOS 14.5 — actual install volume unchanged; the gap is signal-loss from ATT-opted-out users no longer attributable to the install source.

See: signal loss, mmp, cpi

Attribution

Tracking

Assigning credit for a conversion to the ad touchpoint(s) that drove it.

Attribution is the methodology for crediting conversions to ad-network touchpoints. Models: last-click, first-click, linear, time-decay, position-based, data-driven (algorithmic). Different platforms attribute the same conversion to themselves — Meta, Google, Taboola will all claim the same sale at >100% blended. Operators reconcile via a tracker (single source of truth) or MMM modeling at scale.

Example: Sale of $89 attributed by Meta (last touch + view-thru), Google (last paid click), and Taboola (first touch) all simultaneously. Tracker assigns it to whoever owns the click_id on the conversion postback — last-click model.

See: last click, multi touch, mmp, tracker

Audience pool

Traffic & geos

The reachable user-set within a given platform/geo/targeting set.

Audience pool is the set of reachable users within a given targeting layer. Audience pools deplete: as you spend, the high-converting users get acquired, the remainder converts at lower rates ('audience fatigue'). Operators expand pools (broaden targeting) or refresh creatives to re-acquire impression-share among already-saturated audiences. Pool size estimates: Meta Ads Manager 'audience size,' Google's 'estimated reach,' YouTube CTV 'available impressions.'

Example: Meta campaign at $200/day saturates a 1.8M-person audience pool over six weeks (CPA rises from $34 to $58); operator expands targeting (state→country) and refreshes creative to lift CPA back to $38.

See: frequency cap, ctr

Awin

Networks

Global affiliate network — strong in retail, travel, financial services.

Awin (formerly Affiliate Window, then merged with Zanox in 2017) is one of the world's largest affiliate networks — 25,000+ advertisers, 250,000+ publishers. Strong in retail (ASOS, John Lewis), travel, telco, financial services in EU + UK. CPA + CPL + revshare + tenancy deals. €5 application fee deters low-quality publishers. Large content-publisher base (vs the offer-grinder networks).

Example: Comparison-site publisher runs Awin partnerships with 60+ UK insurers; revshare on policy + £15 CPL on quote-form completion. Stable £40k/month from a single broker.

See: maxbounty, everflow, cpa, cpl

Before/after image

Creative

Two-panel transformation image, restricted on most major ad platforms.

Before/after imagery shows a transformation — weight, skin, teeth, hair. Banned on Meta and Google for most verticals; restricted on Taboola, Outbrain, and MGID with case-by-case review. Even where allowed, FTC requires the photos to be of actual customers achieving typical results in the represented timeframe. Most successful nutra operators in 2026 have shifted to lifestyle and ingredient imagery instead.

Example: Weight-loss advertiser submits before/after photo to Taboola compliance review — gets rejected. Switches to a 'happy person at the beach' lifestyle image with the same advertorial copy — passes review and outperforms the original on CTR by 22%.

See: advertorial, ftc, compliance

BeMob

Tools

Affordable cloud tracker for affiliate marketers.

BeMob is a cheaper cloud-based tracker than Voluum, with a generous free tier (up to 100k events/mo) and a $49/mo entry plan. Functionally similar — click tracking, postback support, a/b split tests, multi-cost integrations. Popular with EU operators and beginners.

Example: First-time native operator on BeMob free tier: tracks 80k clicks/month across 4 campaigns, upgrades to $49/mo when Taboola spend crosses $5k.

See: voluum, redtrack, tracker, clickflare

Binom

Tools

Self-hosted PHP-based affiliate tracker.

Binom is a self-hosted (you-own-the-VPS) affiliate tracker, popular with high-volume operators who want to avoid per-event cloud-tracker fees. One-time license $109/mo or a perpetual license. Strong on speed (sub-10ms redirects on a $20 VPS). Tracker code lives on your domain → cleaner from a network-policy perspective. Trade-off: ops-heavy if you don't run a VPS already.

Example: Search-arb operator at 10M clicks/month moves from Voluum ($1,800/mo at that volume) to Binom ($109/mo + $50 VPS). Saves $20k+/year, gains direct DB access for custom reporting.

See: voluum, tracker, redtrack

Biz-opp (business opportunity)

Traffic & geos

Make-money-online and business-opportunity affiliate vertical.

Biz-opp is the umbrella for 'make money online' offers: drop-shipping courses, Amazon FBA training, day-trading newsletters, AI-side-hustle starter kits. Front-end products $7–$97 with up-sell ladders into $497–$2,497 mastermind/coaching. Heavy ClickBank presence. Compliance strict — FTC's 'Business Opportunity Rule' (16 CFR 437) requires earnings-claim substantiation. Most successful operators run advertorial → VSL → checkout funnels.

Example: ClickBank biz-opp offer with $39 front-end and $497 upsell, $74 average-order-value-loaded payout, runs Outbrain native and YouTube channel-arb to advertorial.

See: clickbank, vsl, ftc

Blocklist (blacklist)

Ad-tech

A list of publisher placements excluded from bidding.

A blocklist is the inverse of a safelist — placements where the campaign is forbidden to bid. Used for publishers with high IVT, brand-safety conflicts, or chronic non-conversion. Native networks support fairly large blocklists (2,000–10,000 sites). Programmatic DSPs (DV360, TheTradeDesk) use category-level blocklists in addition to URL-level.

Example: Health-supplement campaign blocks 340 site IDs that drove only IVT-flagged clicks per the tracker's bot-detection over 30 days.

See: safelist, site id, ivt

Brand safety

Compliance & regulatory

Avoiding ad placement adjacent to harmful, illegal, or off-brand content.

Brand safety is the discipline of keeping ads from running next to content that would damage the brand: extremist content, hate speech, graphic violence, misinformation. Major brands run brand-safety filters (DoubleVerify, IAS, MOAT) at the impression level. For affiliate marketers, brand safety matters less but the inverse is real — the publisher's brand-safety filter can block an affiliate's ads, especially in nutra and crypto.

Example: Programmatic display affiliate campaign sees 30% of bids blocked by DoubleVerify pre-bid because the creative contains 'before/after' weight-loss imagery that the brand-safety filter classifies as 'sensational health.'

See: compliance, ivt

Branding

Creative

Long-term brand-equity-building ad spend, vs direct-response.

Branding (or 'brand marketing') is ad spend that builds long-term brand equity rather than producing measurable in-window conversions. Optimized to reach, frequency, brand-recall lift, and search-volume lift. Most affiliate marketers don't run branding; some performance marketers do upper-funnel YouTube and CTV with brand goals to drive halo effect on lower-funnel direct response. Measurement: brand-lift studies, geo-holdouts, post-impression search-volume analysis.

Example: DTC supplement brand allocates 15% of paid budget to YouTube branded-content sponsorships (no direct-response CTA) — measures brand-lift via Google's Brand Lift study and sees 14% increase in unaided brand recall.

See: halo, branding text

branding_text

Ad-tech

Taboola's display name field for the advertiser/source on a creative.

branding_text is the field on a Taboola ad that shows the advertiser's display name (sometimes brand, sometimes the agency). It's the closest thing to an 'advertiser name' that's safe to display publicly without doxxing the publisher widget. mediabuyer.site uses branding_text everywhere advertisers are surfaced.

Example: Same Taboola advertiserId can rotate branding_text values across creatives — 'HealthRight Today' on health verticals, 'WealthDigest' on finance — to A/B brand authority.

See: advertiser id, publisher

Breakeven

Metrics

The point where ad spend equals gross profit produced.

Breakeven is the bid level above which you start losing money. Breakeven CPA = AOV × gross margin. Breakeven CPC = breakeven CPA × landing-page CVR. Breakeven ROAS = 1 / margin. Most operators run their tCPA targets 20–30% below breakeven to absorb model error and refund/chargeback risk.

Breakeven CPA = AOV × margin

Example: AOV $89, margin 55% → breakeven CPA $48.95. LP CVR 2.7% → breakeven CPC $1.32. Bid at $1.05 to leave 20% buffer for refunds and tracking loss.

See: cpa, cpc, roas, margin

CAC

Metrics

Customer acquisition cost — fully-loaded CPA.

CAC (customer acquisition cost) is CPA loaded with all blended costs: ad spend + creative production + tooling + the marketer's salary. CFOs care about CAC; media buyers usually care about CPA. The ratio LTV : CAC is the single most-quoted SaaS metric (3:1 is the often-quoted target).

Example: Reported CPA: $42. Loaded CAC after creative ($6/sale), tracking ($1.20/sale), and team allocation ($8/sale): $57. LTV $190 → LTV:CAC = 3.3.

See: cpa, ltv, payback

CAKE

Tracking

Affiliate-network and direct-advertiser tracking platform.

CAKE (cakemarketing.com) is a SaaS affiliate-network and advertiser-direct tracking platform, smaller than TUNE/Everflow but used by some larger direct advertisers (Lendio, ProspectGenius) for in-house affiliate programs. Strong on multi-channel attribution, real-time API, and whitelabeling. Enterprise pricing.

Example: A finance lead-gen direct advertiser running its own program through CAKE issues unique tracking URLs to 80 affiliates and reconciles weekly via CSV pulls from the CAKE API.

See: tune, everflow

CAN-SPAM Act

Compliance & regulatory

US federal law regulating commercial email.

CAN-SPAM (2003) is the US law governing commercial email. Requires: accurate 'from' lines, non-deceptive subject lines, identification as an ad, a physical postal address, and a working unsubscribe link honored within 10 business days. Per-violation penalty up to $51,744. Affiliate operators using email need to comply on every send; the CRM platform doesn't insulate you.

Example: Affiliate's nutra-promo email landed a $40k FTC fine — missing physical address in footer + a list rented from a non-compliant source. The platform was Sendgrid; the liability was the affiliate's.

See: ftc, compliance

Carousel ad

Creative

Multi-image swipeable ad format — Meta, TikTok, and some native networks.

Carousel ads stack 2–10 images that the user swipes through. Native to Meta, TikTok, and Snap; some native networks (Taboola Stories, MGID) support a similar format. Carousels lift Meta CTRs 30–60% on most direct-response offers because they let the advertiser show product variants, before/after sequences, or step-by-step explainers. Each card can have its own URL, enabling A/B style multi-variant testing in one ad unit.

Example: Skincare DTC brand runs a 5-card Meta carousel showing 5 routine steps; CTR 1.8% (vs 0.9% on single-image), with cards 1 and 5 driving 70% of clicks.

See: creative, thumbnail

CCPA / CPRA

Compliance & regulatory

California's GDPR-equivalent consumer-privacy law.

CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act, 2020) and its successor CPRA (California Privacy Rights Act, 2023) give California residents the right to know what data a company holds, to delete it, and to opt out of 'sale or sharing' of personal data — including the cross-site cookies and pixels affiliate marketers use. Mandates a 'Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information' link. Enforced by the California Privacy Protection Agency.

Example: DTC brand adds a 'Do Not Sell My Info' link in the footer that toggles all ad pixels off via the CMP — required for any site doing >$25M revenue with California users.

See: gdpr, compliance, klaro

CDA Section 230

Compliance & regulatory

US law shielding online platforms from liability for user content.

47 USC § 230 (Communications Decency Act § 230) provides US-based platforms with immunity from liability for most user-generated content. Relevant to affiliate marketing because Section 230 is what protects review sites, comparison pages, and forums from being sued over third-party-published claims about an advertiser. Multiple 2024–2026 court cases and bills (KOSA, FAS proposed amendments) have continued to narrow Section 230 — operators should monitor.

Example: Affiliate review site hosts user-comments on product reviews; CDA 230 immunity protects the site operator from being sued by a manufacturer over a negative user review, provided the operator does not edit or curate the comment.

See: dmca, ftc

CFPB

Compliance & regulatory

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — regulates finance lead-gen.

The CFPB (Consumer Financial Protection Bureau) regulates consumer-finance products under Dodd-Frank: mortgages, payday loans, debt settlement, credit repair, auto lending. Major affiliate-impacting actions: 2023 enforcement against major credit-repair operators ($2.7B order against Lexington Law/CreditRepair.com), continuing 2024–2026 sweeps on debt-relief and 'lead-gen platform' deceptive practices. Operators in finance lead-gen monitor CFPB actions like compliance teams monitor FTC.

Example: Credit-repair affiliate offer is pulled from MaxBounty's wall in late 2023 after CFPB action against the parent company — affiliates rebuild their funnels on credit-monitoring offers that don't carry CFPB exposure.

See: finance credit repair, ftc

Click ID

Tracking

Unique identifier for an ad click, passed through the funnel.

A click ID is a unique token the tracker assigns to each click, baked into the offer URL. When a conversion fires, the click ID is sent back via postback or pixel — that's how the tracker knows which click produced the conversion. Most networks have their own naming (gclid for Google, fbclid for Meta, taboola_click_id for Taboola).

Example: User clicks Taboola ad → tracker generates click_id=tk_8f2a91 → offer URL becomes /offer?cid=tk_8f2a91 → on conversion, MaxBounty fires postback with cid=tk_8f2a91 → attributed.

See: postback, pixel, tracker

ClickBank

Networks

Massive info-product / digital-product affiliate marketplace.

ClickBank (founded 1998) is the dominant affiliate marketplace for info-products, e-books, supplements, and software. Open registration (no approval), 60%-typical commission rates, gravity-score-based offer ranking. Notorious for bad/scammy offers next to legitimate ones — the gravity score filters somewhat but not perfectly. Net-7 weekly payouts via check, wire, or direct deposit.

Example: Top-grossing ClickBank offer in Q1 2025: a male-supplement VSL at $148 AOV / 75% commission ($111 affiliate payout). Gravity 320, EPC $4.10 listed.

See: maxbounty, vsl, epcs, epc

ClickFlare

Tools

Modern affiliate tracker with strong postback / S2S features.

ClickFlare is a newer entrant in the affiliate-tracker space (2022+), built by ex-Voluum people. Modern UI, deep S2S integration set, generous free tier (250k events/mo). Strong on direct-response native + push. Popular among Eastern-European arbitrage operators and as a Voluum-replacement.

Example: Operator migrating off Voluum's $199/mo plan to ClickFlare's free 250k tier saves $2.4k/year on a sub-200k-events campaign portfolio.

See: voluum, bemob, redtrack, tracker

Cloaking

Compliance & regulatory

Showing different content to ad reviewers vs. real users.

Cloaking is the practice of serving one page (usually a clean, compliant page) to ad-network reviewers and bots while serving a different page (the actual offer) to real users. It's against Google/Meta/Taboola's policies in 100% of cases. Operators do it anyway in grey verticals (sweeps, dating, crypto). Detection has gotten dramatically better since 2020 — heuristic + ML detection at most major networks. We don't recommend it.

Example: Reviewer hits the page from a known datacenter IP → sees a Wikipedia-style article on green tea. Real user from a residential IP on mobile → sees the actual nutra advertorial. Ban-on-detection.

See: compliance, ivt, ftc, fingerprinting

CMP (consent management platform)

Compliance & regulatory

User-consent UI and storage for GDPR/CCPA/LGPD compliance.

A CMP (consent management platform) is the cookie-banner-and-storage layer that captures, stores, and signals user consent for tracking. Required by GDPR, CCPA, LGPD. Major CMPs: OneTrust, TrustArc, Cookiebot, CookieYes, Klaro (open-source), Didomi. CMPs implement IAB's TCF (Transparency and Consent Framework) v2.2 to signal consent downstream to ad-tech vendors. Modern affiliate sites all have a CMP.

Example: Affiliate review site adds Cookiebot CMP in Q2 2024 to comply with EU and California traffic — opt-in rate 64%, downstream Meta CAPI fires only on consenting users — drops measured conversion volume 36% but cleans the data of non-compliant signals.

See: gdpr, ccpa, klaro

Comparison page

Creative

Side-by-side product-comparison prelander, common in finance and SaaS verticals.

A comparison page is a prelander that compares 3–5 products in a structured table, with one of them as the ranked-#1 affiliate offer. Common in VPN, antivirus, insurance, mortgage-rates, and crypto-exchange verticals. Comparison pages convert well because they feel editorial; FTC requires accurate basis for the rankings (the disclosure usually says 'compensation may influence ranking').

Example: VPN comparison page on a content site lists NordVPN #1, Surfshark #2, ExpressVPN #3 — affiliate-revenue ranking, with disclosure. Visitor click-through to NordVPN: 22%; to-checkout: 4.2%; clears $8.40 EPC blended.

See: listicle, prelander

Compliance

Compliance & regulatory

Adherence to ad-network policies, FTC rules, and platform ToS.

Compliance in performance marketing means: respecting ad-network policies (Taboola, Meta, Google Ads), FTC consumer-protection rules, GDPR/CCPA for data handling, COPPA for kids' content, and category-specific rules (health claims, financial disclosures, alcohol). The 'compliance team' at a large network is part-policy, part-engineer, part-lawyer. Cleaning up your campaigns to be policy-clean is harder than people think.

Example: Health offer's 'cures diabetes' claim flagged by Taboola compliance → rewritten to 'may support healthy blood sugar' → resubmitted, approved, lower CTR.

See: ftc, cloaking, ivt, gdpr

Content recommendation

Ad-tech

The native-ad inventory format — 'You may also like' style widgets.

Content recommendation (or 'content discovery') is the inventory format pioneered by Taboola and Outbrain — a widget under articles showing related content, half of which is publisher-internal links and half of which is paid native units. The format underpins the entire native-ads industry. The widget IDs (Taboola siteId, Outbrain SectionID) are the auction units; advertisers bid on them via safelists.

Example: Bottom of a CNN article shows a 6-tile content-rec widget. Two tiles are CNN articles, four are paid Taboola placements — same look, different revenue model.

See: native ad, taboola, outbrain, publisher, site id

Content.ad

Networks

Long-tail US/CA native ad network — content-recommendation widgets.

Content.ad is a smaller US-based native ad network that places content-recommendation widgets on tier-2/3 US publishers (newspaper sites, regional news, niche blogs). Lower volume than Taboola/Outbrain, but inventory is genuinely tier-1 geo. Operators use it to round out a buy when Taboola caps out. Self-serve dashboard, $250 minimum deposit, CPC-only bidding.

Example: Auto-insurance arbitrager hitting a $4K/day spend ceiling on Outbrain US adds Content.ad as a fourth source — finds another $800/day at a comparable CPA on regional newspaper inventory.

See: taboola, outbrain, revcontent

Conversion Bid Strategy (CBS)

Ad-tech

Outbrain's automated tCPA bidding engine.

CBS (Conversion Bid Strategy) is Outbrain's auto-bidder — equivalent to Taboola's Smart Bid. Operator sets a target CPA, Outbrain's model bids per impression. There are three tiers (Semi-Auto, Fully-Auto, Max-Conversions); each gives the model more leeway to chase volume vs efficiency. Same trade-off as Smart Bid: needs ~30 conversions/week to learn well.

Example: Outbrain CBS Semi-Auto with $35 tCPA target: hits $33 in week 3, drifts to $44 in week 5 when audience expands. Operator pulls back to manual CPC.

See: outbrain, smart bid, tcpa

Conversions API (CAPI)

Tracking

Meta's server-side conversion API replacing client-side pixels.

Conversions API (CAPI) is Meta's server-to-server conversion-event protocol, intended to supplement (eventually replace) the client-side pixel. Same idea on Google (Enhanced Conversions), TikTok (Events API), Pinterest (Conversions API). Operators run pixel + CAPI in parallel for redundancy and dedupe by event_id. CAPI is now mandatory on most large Meta accounts to keep the algorithm well-fed under iOS 14.5+ signal loss.

Example: Shopify store fires Meta pixel client-side AND CAPI server-side on every Purchase event, with matching event_id. Meta dedupes; matched-conversion volume restored to 92% of pre-iOS-14.5 baseline.

See: pixel, postback, tracker

COPPA

Compliance & regulatory

US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act — under-13 data collection rules.

COPPA (15 USC §§ 6501–6506) restricts collection of personal information from children under 13 without verifiable parental consent. Largely irrelevant to most affiliate verticals because the audiences skew older — but matters for any kid-facing offer (gaming, app-installs, education) and for landing-page cookie practices on tablet-heavy households. FTC settlements have hit YouTube ($170M, 2019) and TikTok (multiple).

Example: Mobile-game UA campaign verifies all incoming clicks come from age-gated targeting and confirms its tracker doesn't store personal info on under-13 click-through — required to clear iOS App Store and Google Play eligibility.

See: compliance, gdpr, ccpa

CPA

Metrics

Cost per acquisition — ad spend divided by conversions.

CPA (cost per acquisition) is what it costs you to produce one paying conversion. It is ad spend divided by conversion count. Operators bid by CPA target on most platforms (tCPA on Google Ads, target CPA on Meta, manual CPA bidding on Taboola Smart Bid). Your breakeven CPA equals AOV × gross margin: bid above that and you bleed.

CPA = ad spend / conversions

Example: Spent $4,000 on Outbrain, got 80 sales. CPA = $50. AOV is $99 and margin is 55%, so breakeven CPA is ~$54 — campaign is profitable but tight.

See: roas, breakeven, aov, cpl, cpi

CPAlead

Networks

Mobile-heavy CPA network — content-locking, sweeps, app installs.

CPAlead is a mid-tier CPA network with strong mobile / sweeps / app-install offers. Known for content-locking integrations (the unlock-this-content-for-an-email model), incent / non-incent app installs, and SOI sweeps. Lower bar to entry than MaxBounty. Daily and weekly payout options.

Example: Operator runs an iOS gift-card sweepstakes through CPAlead at $1.80 SOI payout on Facebook traffic — 8% LP CVR, $0.21 CPC blended → EPC $0.144.

See: maxbounty, soi, cpi, crakrevenue

CPC

Metrics

Cost per click — ad spend divided by clicks.

CPC (cost per click) is the average price you pay per click sent to your landing page. Native networks bid by CPC at the auction layer even when you've set a tCPA goal — the platform translates your goal into a CPC bid using its predicted CVR. Watch CPC trend over time; rising CPC at flat CVR means competition is moving up.

CPC = ad spend / clicks

Example: Taboola US insurance vertical clearing $0.42 CPC blended across 18 campaigns. Same advertiser on RevContent clears at $0.18 CPC for similar audience.

See: cpm, ctr, cvr

CPI

Metrics

Cost per install — what you pay per app install.

CPI (cost per install) is the per-install payout in mobile-app user-acquisition. The default conversion event in mobile UA before the industry shifted toward CPE (cost per engagement) and ROAS targets. CPI deals are common on incentivized networks, mobile DSPs (Liftoff, Moloco, Applovin), and on offer walls. Tier-1 organic CPIs run $2–$8; gaming and finance CPIs can hit $15–$40. Postback fires on the SDK install event via MMP (AppsFlyer, Adjust, Singular).

CPI = ad spend / installs

Example: A casual game runs at a $4.50 CPI on Applovin in the US. Day-7 ROAS is 0.4×, so the campaign needs Day-30 monetization to clear breakeven.

See: cpa, mmp, postback

CPL

Metrics

Cost per lead — what you pay per generated lead.

CPL (cost per lead) is the affiliate-side payout (or the advertiser-side cost) for one lead — typically defined as a name + email + phone form completion or a confirmed double opt-in. CPL offers dominate finance, insurance, education, home-services, and solar verticals. Payouts range from $1.50 (low-quality SOI sweeps) to $80+ (qualified mortgage or insurance lead). Lead quality is the variable that breaks most CPL deals — advertisers scrub leads after the fact and claw back payouts on duplicates, fakes, or leads that don't pick up the phone.

CPL = ad spend / leads

Example: MaxBounty pays $32 per US auto-insurance lead (zip + year + driver). At a 4% LP CVR and a $0.40 CPC, breakeven CPC is $1.28 — there's room.

See: cpa, soi, doi, lead quality

CPM

Metrics

Cost per thousand impressions.

CPM (cost per mille) is what it costs to serve 1,000 ad impressions. Native networks technically clear CPM at the auction layer — your CPC × predicted CTR × 1,000 = your effective CPM bid. CPM is the right metric for branding campaigns, programmatic display, and CTV; CPC is the right metric for direct-response native and search.

CPM = (ad spend / impressions) × 1000

Example: A programmatic display buy on PMP cleared at a $4.20 CPM with 0.18% CTR — that translates to a $2.33 CPC, double the campaign goal.

See: cpc, rpm, ecpm, cpv

CPV

Metrics

Cost per view — pay-per-view ad pricing (mainly pop, push, video).

CPV (cost per view) is the pricing model where the advertiser pays per ad view rather than per click or per thousand impressions. Common on pop / popunder networks (PropellerAds, PopAds, PopCash), some push networks, and some YouTube TrueView buys (where a 'view' = 30 seconds or full watch, whichever is shorter). CPVs on pop traffic run $0.0005–$0.005 per view; YouTube TrueView clears $0.02–$0.15 depending on geo and audience.

CPV = ad spend / views

Example: PropellerAds popunder on US tier-1 mobile clearing $0.0021 CPV. With a 0.6% LP-to-offer CVR, the campaign needs $0.35 EPC just to break even.

See: cpc, cpm, popunder

CPV Lab

Tracking

Self-hosted PHP-based affiliate tracker — affordable for solo operators.

CPV Lab is a self-hosted PHP-based affiliate tracker that's been running since 2011. One-time license ~$299–$697, runs on shared or VPS hosting, supports multi-funnel, smart-redirect, click-fraud filters. Lower-feature than Voluum/Binom but the cheapest credible self-hosted option for solo operators tracking under 1M clicks/month.

Example: Solo affiliate tracking 200K clicks/month on a $20/month VPS using CPV Lab pays $0 in monthly tracking fees vs $399/month on Voluum at the same volume.

See: binom, voluum, redtrack

CrakRevenue

Networks

Adult / dating / cam-vertical affiliate network.

CrakRevenue is the dominant CPA network in the adult/dating/cam vertical. Pay-per-sign-up, pay-per-purchase, and revshare options; cookie-stuffing detection is aggressive (they'll claw back). High payouts ($30–$80 per dating SOI in tier-1) but compliance / network policies make scaling on Taboola/Outbrain impossible — most CrakRevenue traffic is push, popunder, and adult publisher direct.

Example: Push-traffic operator runs a CrakRevenue dating SOI at $42 payout in CA/AU — $0.012 CPC on RichAds, 1.1% LP→sign-up CR → EPC $0.46.

See: maxbounty, popunder, push traffic, soi

Creative

Creative

The image + headline + body of a single ad unit.

Creative is the literal ad asset: the image (or video), headline (title), description, and CTA. Native creatives are deceptively important — title and image account for 80%+ of CTR variance. Most veteran operators test 30–100 creative permutations per concept before scaling.

Example: Same product, 60 creative permutations across 6 image angles × 10 headline patterns. Top performer: 0.91% CTR. Bottom: 0.07%. 13× spread on the same offer.

See: title, thumbnail, video ad

Creative fatigue

Creative

Specific subform of ad fatigue at the individual-creative level.

Creative fatigue is the specific subform of ad fatigue where one specific creative's CTR/CVR is decaying faster than the campaign's audience pool would explain. Diagnosis: the same creative shows 30%+ CTR decline over 2 weeks while a freshly-launched creative on the same campaign performs at the original CTR. Most native operators run 8–20 creatives in rotation per campaign to mask creative-level fatigue.

Example: Skin-cream advertorial 'Ad #14' clears 0.71% CTR week 1, drops to 0.48% by week 3 while sister creatives hold at 0.68% — operator pauses #14 and replaces with the next variant in the queue.

See: ad fatigue, creative

Crypto recovery / scam-recovery offers

Traffic & geos

'We recover stolen crypto' lead-gen vertical — high compliance risk.

Crypto-recovery offers pay for leads who claim to have lost crypto to scams and want it 'recovered.' The category is itself substantially fraudulent — the FTC, FBI, and IC3 have warned consumers repeatedly that legitimate crypto recovery via cold-call from internet ads doesn't exist. Major networks ban these offers. Some grey-market networks still run them on push and email traffic.

Example: Crypto-recovery offer paying $140 CPL runs on push-notification traffic only — the affiliate operator runs it knowing the offer's compliance profile and prices that risk into bid limits.

See: crypto trading, cpl

Crypto trading offers

Traffic & geos

Crypto-broker and trading-platform CPA offers.

Crypto-trading offers pay affiliates per funded account on a crypto exchange or trading platform (Bybit, OKX, Bitget, MEXC, Phemex). CPAs $80–$300 per FTD (first-time deposit) of $50–$100. Banned on Google Ads, Meta limits the geos, runs heavily on Twitter ads, Telegram channels, push traffic, and SEO/YouTube content arb. Crypto winter cycles compress payouts dramatically.

Example: Bybit FTD offer at $200 per qualified deposit funnels Twitter Ads traffic to a comparison-page prelander ('best 5 crypto exchanges 2026') — blended FTD CPA $135.

See: crypto recovery, cpa

CTR

Metrics

Click-through rate — clicks divided by impressions.

CTR (click-through rate) is the percentage of viewers who click. On Taboola/Outbrain a 'good' CTR depends on placement — desktop article-end widgets see 0.4–1.5%, mobile mid-article 0.8–3%. CTR is the single biggest lever for native unit economics: a 2× CTR doubles your effective CPM at the same CPC bid, so the platform shows you more.

CTR = clicks / impressions

Example: Same advertorial creative tested on Taboola: 0.32% CTR with a stock-photo thumbnail vs 0.71% CTR with a hand-shot before/after image. Same CPC, double the volume.

See: cpc, cvr, creative

CVR

Metrics

Conversion rate — conversions divided by clicks.

CVR (conversion rate) is the percentage of clicks that produce a conversion. The conversion can be a sale, a lead, an install, or a search-arbitrage feed click — depends on the offer. CVR × AOV × margin = how much you can afford to pay per click. Most native LPs land at 1–6% CVR; sweepstakes and RSOC search can hit 30%+ on the front-end click but the downstream offer CVR is what actually pays you.

CVR = conversions / clicks

Example: Skin-cream advertorial → sales page funnel converts at 2.1%. Adding a quiz prelander in front lifted CVR to 3.4%, a 62% gain at the same CPC.

See: cpc, epc, rsoc

Daily cap

Ad-tech

Per-affiliate or per-source daily conversion limit set by the advertiser.

A 'cap' is the maximum number of conversions per affiliate per day that the advertiser will pay out on. Caps protect the advertiser from over-spending on bad-quality leads and let the advertiser-side call center pace its capacity. Once the cap is hit, traffic gets either paused (best case) or routed to a fallback offer at lower payout (worst case, common). Smart operators bake the cap into their bid model and pause once the cap is hit.

Example: Insurance lead-gen offer caps at 50 leads/day per affiliate — operator hits the cap by 1pm and either pauses traffic or shifts to a backup auto-insurance buyer at $14 CPL vs the primary's $32.

See: lead quality

Data clean room

Ad-tech

Privacy-preserving environment for joining first-party + platform data.

A data clean room is a privacy-preserving environment (Google Ads Data Hub, Amazon Marketing Cloud, LiveRamp Embedded Identity, AWS Clean Rooms) that lets advertisers join their first-party CRM data with platform-side ad-exposure data without either side seeing the raw user-level data. Key infrastructure for post-cookie attribution, lookalike-audience building, and ROAS measurement. Typical cost: $20K–$200K/year minimum for tier-1 clean rooms.

Example: DTC brand uploads first-party purchaser-list to Amazon Marketing Cloud, joins with AMC's exposure data, finds that AMC-DSP impressions had 12% incremental purchase lift over un-exposed control — re-allocates display budget toward AMC.

See: attribution, capi

Dating: mainstream

Traffic & geos

Match.com / eHarmony-tier mainstream dating affiliate vertical.

Mainstream dating refers to non-adult dating affiliate offers (Match, eHarmony, OkCupid, Plenty of Fish, Hinge, Christian Mingle, OurTime, EliteSingles). CPL $1.50–$4 SOI, $5–$25 DOI, CPA $15–$80 per first paid month. Runs on most ad platforms (Meta, native, Google, Twitter). Demographic sub-segmentation drives CPA economics — niche demos (Christian, 50+, single-parent) outperform mainstream broad targeting.

Example: OurTime (50+) affiliate offer at $48 CPA runs on Outbrain US with a 'best-dating-sites-50plus' listicle prelander — clears $0.86 EPC blended.

See: dating niche, soi, doi

Dating: niche

Traffic & geos

Adult, hookup, sugar, and ethnic-niche dating affiliate vertical.

Niche dating refers to adult-dating, hookup-style apps, sugar-dating, and demographic-niche dating (Black-only, Asian-only, Latino-only, Christian, JDate, Muslim). Adult sub-niche runs on adult-network traffic only (TrafficJunky, ExoClick, push). CPL $1–$8 SOI, CPA $25–$120 per upgrade. Heavy on smartlinks because matching offer-to-traffic-source-and-geo is hard to do manually.

Example: Adult-hookup offer at $60 CPA on TrafficJunky targeting Spanish-speaking LATAM via localized prelanders — blended LP CVR 6%, CPA $42.

See: dating mainstream, smartlink, trafficjunky

Dayparting

Ad-tech

Scheduling ad delivery to specific hours of the day.

Dayparting is the practice of restricting campaign delivery to specific hours / days when the target audience converts best. Native networks (Taboola, Outbrain) and DSPs all support hour-of-day and day-of-week scheduling. Most ROI comes from killing the worst-converting overnight hours rather than from finding magic windows; data takes 4+ weeks to be statistically meaningful.

Example: Insurance lead-gen campaign: pause all delivery 1am–6am US-Eastern (call-center is closed → leads go cold → advertiser scrubs payouts). CPL drops 24%.

See: safelist, tcpa

DirectTrack

Tracking

Long-running affiliate network platform — DirectAgents-owned.

DirectTrack (now part of HasOffers/TUNE-era infrastructure) is a legacy affiliate-network platform that powered networks like CPAEmpire, Convert2Media, and Hydra Network in the 2010s. Less common in 2026 but the backend still runs at some specialized networks. Standard postback / pixel / S2S support. Mention in any modern guide is mostly historical.

Example: An old affiliate offer page from 2014 with `?did=12345` in the URL is a DirectTrack click-ID parameter — the network is long-since rebuilt on a different platform but the URL pattern persists.

See: everflow, tracker, postback

DMCA

Compliance & regulatory

US Digital Millennium Copyright Act — takedown procedure for infringing content.

DMCA (17 USC § 512) is the US copyright-takedown procedure: a copyright owner sends a notice to a hosting provider, the provider removes the content, the alleged infringer can counter-notice. Relevant to affiliate marketing in two ways: (1) when affiliate content scrapes copyrighted material (publisher images, video clips); (2) when affiliate competitors send false DMCA notices to take down a competing review page. Takedown response time at most CDNs is 24–72h.

Example: Affiliate review site receives a DMCA takedown for using a manufacturer's product photo without license — counter-notices with documentation showing the photo was provided in the manufacturer's affiliate-press kit, content restored within 7 days.

See: compliance, ftc

DOI (Double Opt-In)

Traffic & geos

Lead-gen offer paying on confirmed email click.

DOI (double opt-in) requires the user to click a confirmation link in a follow-up email before the conversion fires. Lower CVR than SOI but higher payouts and cleaner downstream metrics. Required by many email regulators (GDPR, CASL).

Example: DE DOI insurance offer at €4.20 payout, but only 38% of SOI submissions click the confirmation. Effective CR vs LP-form is 2.1× lower than SOI but payout is 3× higher.

See: soi, cpa, cpl, gdpr

Doorway page

Compliance & regulatory

A page built primarily to rank for SEO and funnel users elsewhere.

A doorway page is a page built to rank for a specific search term, then funnel the user to a different destination (an offer, a sales page). Google has explicit anti-doorway rules and de-indexes them when caught. Doorway pages are not the same as legitimate landing pages — the test is whether the page provides standalone value.

Example: 150 city-specific 'best mortgage broker in [city]' pages, each 400 words, all redirecting to the same broker's quote form. Classic doorway — de-indexed in 2024.

See: seo, compliance, mfa

DSP (demand-side platform)

Ad-tech

Advertiser-side platform that programmatically buys inventory across SSPs.

A DSP (demand-side platform) is the advertiser-side platform that programmatically buys inventory across SSPs and exchanges. Major DSPs: The Trade Desk, DV360 (Google), Amazon DSP, Yahoo DSP, MediaMath (now Infillion), Adelphic. DSPs are the primary tool for programmatic display, video, CTV, and audio. Cost structure: platform fee (5–15% of media) + media spend.

Example: Tier-1 advertiser running CTV through The Trade Desk pays $0.18 platform fee on each $1.20 media-CPM = $1.38 effective cost per thousand impressions to the DSP.

See: ssp, header bidding, cpm

E-com: drop-shipping offers

Traffic & geos

Direct-to-consumer trinket-and-tee affiliate sub-vertical.

Drop-shipping affiliate offers are direct-response e-commerce products usually priced $19–$59 with 50–70% margin baked in. Payouts 30–50% rev-share or $15–$35 CPA. Massive on Meta/TikTok organic-and-paid, less so on premium native (margin too thin to outbid nutra and finance for the same placements). Returns and chargeback rates are the killer.

Example: Posture-corrector drop-ship offer at $39 AOV, 35% affiliate cut runs Meta organic-influencer + paid native funnels, blended CPA $14 vs $13.65 payout — operator subsidizes from upsell margin.

See: aov, margin

eCPC

Metrics

Effective cost per click — blended CPC across all bid types.

eCPC (effective cost per click) is the realized cost-per-click after enhanced-bidding adjustments. On Google Ads with eCPC enabled, the advertiser sets a max CPC and Google adjusts bids upward (+30%) for predicted-high-converting auctions. eCPC differs from CPC in that 'CPC' is the auction price you paid; 'eCPC' is the moving average across all paid clicks under an enhanced strategy.

Example: Google Ads campaign with $1.50 max CPC and eCPC enabled: actual cleared eCPC is $1.83 average — Google bid up to $1.95 on high-intent auctions and down to $1.20 on low-intent ones.

See: cpc, tcpa

eCPM

Monetization

Effective CPM — actual revenue per 1,000 impressions.

eCPM (effective CPM) is the realized cost per thousand impressions after all fees, exchange take rates, and fill rates. For an advertiser running a tCPA campaign, eCPM is your CPM-equivalent budget: CPC × CTR × 1,000. For a publisher running header-bidding, eCPM is the auction-cleared price.

Example: Header-bidding setup: Prebid clears $4.10 eCPM, AdX clears $5.30, AppNexus $3.80. Top-bid wins. Floor pricing pushed up the average from $3.90 to $4.85 over six weeks.

See: cpm, rpm

Edu lead-gen

Traffic & geos

Higher-education / for-profit-college lead-gen vertical.

Education lead-gen is a US lead-gen vertical for for-profit colleges and online degree programs. CPL $25–$65 per qualified prospective-student lead. Heavy regulation post-Obama-era 'Gainful Employment' rules. Modern compliance focuses on accurate program-completion-rate disclosures and accurate post-grad employment claims. Major networks: HigherEducation.com, EducationDynamics, QuinStreet.

Example: RN-to-BSN online-degree lead-gen at $48 CPL runs on Taboola US with a quiz-prelander ('how long would it take you to finish your nursing degree') — clears 6.5% LP CVR for a $42 effective CPA.

See: finance debt relief, cpl

Engagement rate

Metrics

Interaction-to-impression ratio across reactions, clicks, comments, shares.

Engagement rate sums reactions, clicks, comments, and shares as a percentage of reach (or impressions, depending on definition). On Meta and TikTok organic posts, 1–3% is mainstream, 5%+ is strong. For paid ads, engagement rate is a weak signal: clicks-to-conversion matters more, and high engagement with low conversion often signals comment-spam or wrong-audience reach.

Example: DTC brand's TikTok ad gets 78K views, 2.4K likes, 320 comments, 180 shares (3.7% engagement) — clicks-to-LP only 410 (0.5% CTR), conversions 3 → engagement is misleading, ad is paused.

See: ctr, cvr

EPC

Metrics

Earnings per click — offer-side revenue divided by clicks.

EPC (earnings per click) is what an affiliate publisher makes per click sent to an offer. Networks publish EPC averages on offer cards (e.g. ClickBank EPC, MaxBounty EPC). EPC is asymmetric — top publishers can get 3–10× the listed EPC due to better landers and segmentation. Don't trust network-listed EPC at face value.

EPC = revenue / clicks

Example: ClickBank offer card shows $1.84 EPC. Actual EPC on a niche-specific advertorial → VSL funnel: $4.20. The card averages every affiliate sending raw banner traffic.

See: epcr, cvr, epcs

EPCR / EPCV

Metrics

Earnings per conversion (EPCV) or per click on offer (EPCR).

Variants of EPC. Used inconsistently across networks — always read the network's docs to confirm whether they mean per-click, per-conversion, or per-confirmed-conversion. Most useful for comparing offers on the same network.

Example: Same offer card on MaxBounty shows EPC $1.10 (per outbound click) and EPCV $42 (per confirmed lead). The EPCV is the one that matters for a CPL buyer.

See: epc, cvr

EPCs (offer card)

Metrics

Network-published average EPC per offer card.

EPCs published by networks (CB Gravity, MaxBounty offer EPC) are averages across all publishers — heavily skewed by top performers. Don't size a campaign off them. Use them as relative ranking only.

Example: ClickBank Gravity 280 means 280 affiliates earned at least one commission on the offer in the last 8 weeks. High Gravity tells you the offer converts; it does not tell you it will convert for you.

See: epc, clickbank

EverFlow

Tools

Affiliate-network management platform (SaaS).

EverFlow is the dominant SaaS affiliate-tracking / network-management platform — used by advertisers and brands to run their own affiliate programs (the 'OPM' / in-house alternative to listing on MaxBounty / ClickBank / Awin). Click-tracking, S2S postbacks, fraud detection, payment management. From $1,500/mo. Direct competitors: HasOffers / TUNE, Cake, Offer18, Trackier.

Example: DTC supplement brand runs in-house affiliate program on EverFlow with 240 affiliates, $30 CPA + 10% revshare. Avoids the 25% margin hit ClickBank / network listing would take.

See: maxbounty, clickbank, voluum

ExoClick

Networks

Adult and mainstream display/native/video ad network — Barcelona-based.

ExoClick is a large Barcelona-based ad network founded 2006, dominant in adult traffic but also runs mainstream verticals. Multiple formats: display, native, video pre-roll, push notifications. Largest single source for adult dating affiliates. Self-serve dashboard, $200 minimum deposit, supports CPC and CPM bidding. Compliance is looser than mainstream networks but stricter than pure pop networks.

Example: Adult-dating affiliate runs ExoClick native at $0.08 CPC across Spanish-speaking LATAM, CVR 4.2% on a localized prelander — clears $0.35 EPC at scale.

See: trafficjunky, popunder

FCC

Compliance & regulatory

Federal Communications Commission — regulates TCPA enforcement and DNC.

The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) issues and enforces TCPA implementing regulations (47 CFR Part 64), maintains the National Do-Not-Call Registry, and rules on autodial-equipment definitions. The FCC's 2024 'one-to-one consent' order significantly tightened lead-gen consent rules (effective January 2025). Affiliates and lead-gen advertisers monitor FCC rulemakings closely for downstream impact.

Example: Lead-gen network updates its consent disclosure language in late 2024 to comply with the FCC's January 2025 one-to-one consent rule — affiliates that fail to update get suspended from the network's compliance-required offers.

See: tcpa, tcpa tax, ftc

FDA claim restriction

Compliance & regulatory

Federal Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act limits on supplement and OTC marketing claims.

FDA regulates structure-function vs disease claims for dietary supplements (DSHEA, 21 USC § 343) and OTC drugs. Supplements may make 'structure-function' claims ('supports healthy joint function') with the boilerplate disclaimer, but cannot claim to 'treat,' 'cure,' or 'prevent' disease. Crossing that line moves the product into 'unapproved drug' territory and triggers FDA warning letters and FTC follow-on enforcement. Affiliate marketers translate this into ad-copy hygiene rules.

Example: Joint-pain supplement copy says 'helps support flexible joint movement' (allowed) instead of 'treats arthritis pain' (disease claim, banned) — operator's compliance reviewer scrubs the latter on every creative submission.

See: ftc, compliance

Finance: credit repair

Traffic & geos

Credit-score-repair and credit-monitoring lead-gen vertical.

Credit-repair is a US lead-gen vertical: services that dispute negative items on consumer credit reports (Lexington Law, CreditRepair.com pre-shutdown), and credit-monitoring upsells. Heavy regulation post-2023 CFPB action against major operators (CRO Aggregator). Modern offers focus on credit-monitoring + score-tracking with opt-in repair add-on. Payouts $25–$60 CPL.

Example: Credit-monitoring offer at $42 CPL runs on Outbrain native, advertorial titled 'how to read your credit report (one weird number nobody mentions),' clears $1.18 EPC blended.

See: finance debt relief, cpl

Finance: debt relief

Traffic & geos

Debt-consolidation and debt-settlement lead-gen vertical.

Debt-relief is a US-centric finance lead-gen vertical: debt-consolidation, debt-settlement, credit-counseling, IRS tax-debt resolution. CPL payouts $30–$75 on a $10K+ debt-amount lead. Compliance is strict — TCPA exposure on phone fields, FTC truth-in-lending oversight, and state-level usury rules. Strong native, search, and SEO arb plays.

Example: Debt-consolidation lead-gen offer at $48 CPL, $10K+ debt threshold, runs on Taboola US: $0.42 CPC, 5.1% LP CVR (form completion), 67% post-submit verified-lead pass rate — blended payable CPA $58 vs $72 effective payout per qualified lead.

See: finance credit repair, tcpa, cpl

Finance: insurance

Traffic & geos

Auto, home, life, and health insurance lead-gen vertical.

Insurance is the largest US affiliate lead-gen vertical by spend. Auto-insurance leads ($15–$40 CPL), home insurance ($25–$50), life insurance ($30–$80), Medicare/Medicare-Supplement ($45–$90, seasonal). Traffic mix: native arb (Taboola/Outbrain/MGID), Meta (where allowed), Google search, search-arb feeds. Compliance: TCPA exposure on phone-call leads is the dominant risk — class actions and PJP settlements have driven up the cost of compliance dramatically since 2022.

Example: Medicare-Supplement lead-gen offer (October–December AEP window only) clears $78 CPL on Outbrain US with a quiz-funnel prelander and a TCPA-compliant single-line consent disclosure.

See: tcpa, cpl

Fingerprinting

Compliance & regulatory

Identifying users via browser/device signals when cookies are blocked.

Fingerprinting is the technique of identifying a user via browser signals (User-Agent, screen resolution, fonts, canvas hash, WebGL parameters, audio context, etc.) instead of cookies. Used by ad networks, fraud-detection vendors, and affiliate trackers to bridge consent / cookie loss. Apple's ITP and Firefox's TCP block third-party cookies but don't fully block fingerprinting; Apple began rolling out fingerprint-resistance in Safari 17 in 2024.

Example: RedTrack's S2S fallback uses a fingerprint hash when the user's third-party cookie is missing — sustains 60–80% attribution rate on Safari traffic that would otherwise track at zero.

See: tracker, postback, ivt, attribution

First-click attribution

Tracking

Attribution model that credits the first ad in the conversion path.

First-click attribution credits 100% of conversion value to the first ad/channel that touched the user. Useful for valuing top-of-funnel activities (awareness ads, content-marketing) but undervalues retargeting and direct-response ads. Mostly used as a complement to last-click, not as the primary attribution model. Modern multi-channel ops use both alongside MTA models for triangulation.

Example: Brand looking at first-click data finds that YouTube pre-roll generates 22% of first-clicks but only 4% of last-clicks — re-allocates 8% more YouTube budget knowing the channel under-attributes on last-click.

See: last click, attribution, multi touch

Frequency cap

Ad-tech

The maximum number of times one user can be shown an ad.

Frequency cap is the per-user impression limit on an ad campaign — typically expressed as 'X impressions per Y hours/days'. Native networks default to 3 impressions / 24h on direct-response campaigns; brand campaigns sometimes allow 10+. Caps protect creative fatigue and audience burnout. Too tight and the bidder loses scale; too loose and CTR + ROAS decay quickly.

Example: Taboola campaign default cap of 3 imps/24h: CTR holds 0.92% over 60 days. Removing the cap to chase volume drops CTR to 0.41% in a week as impressions concentrate on heavy users.

See: creative, ctr

FTC (Federal Trade Commission)

Compliance & regulatory

The US consumer-protection regulator that enforces affiliate-disclosure law.

The FTC is the primary US regulator of online advertising. They enforce the Endorsement Guides (mandate clear and conspicuous affiliate-disclosure), the FTC Act (deceptive advertising), and the CAN-SPAM Act (email). Settlements run from low-six-figures to multi-million for repeat offenders. Affiliate marketers operating in the US must disclose paid relationships above-the-fold, plain-language, on every page.

Example: 2022 FTC consent order against a supplement affiliate network: $2.1M settlement for unsubstantiated weight-loss claims and missing disclosures across 14 affiliate sites.

See: affiliate disclosure, compliance, cloaking, can spam

FTC disclosure

Compliance & regulatory

Required disclosure of material connection in endorsements and affiliate links.

FTC's Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255) require disclosure of any 'material connection' between an endorser and the advertiser — including affiliate-commission relationships. Required disclosures must be 'clear and conspicuous' and 'unavoidable.' Modern affiliate-content compliance: include 'Affiliate disclosure: we may earn a commission from links on this page' on every page that contains affiliate links, plus '#ad' or '#sponsored' on social posts.

Example: VPN review-site adds a banner-style 'Disclosure: this site receives compensation when you click affiliate links' at the top of every comparison page — clears the FTC clear-and-conspicuous standard.

See: ftc, affiliate disclosure

FunnelFlux

Tracking

Visual-funnel-builder affiliate tracker — Pro and self-hosted versions.

FunnelFlux is a tracker known for its visual funnel-builder UI — instead of writing redirect logic, you draw the funnel as a flowchart with branching by geo/device/source. Cloud Pro version $129–$649/month, self-hosted ~$1,500/year. Underrated for complex multi-step funnels (quiz → prelander → VSL → checkout) where the visual builder pays for itself.

Example: A nutra advertiser running a 5-step funnel (quiz → results → recommendation → checkout → upsell) uses FunnelFlux's visual builder to A/B-test step-3 alternatives without rewriting tracker logic.

See: voluum, redtrack, binom

Gambling: online casino

Traffic & geos

Slots and table-games affiliate vertical — state-restricted in US.

Online-casino affiliate offers (slots, table games) are legal in only a handful of US states (NJ, PA, MI, WV, CT, RI). Outside the US, online casino is the largest gambling-affiliate sub-vertical globally — UK, EU (Malta-licensed), and LATAM are major markets. Payouts: CPA $200–$500 per qualified depositor, or 25–45% lifetime rev-share. Heavy compliance: UKGC, MGA, state-by-state in the US.

Example: EU casino affiliate runs Malta-licensed offer to UK users via a comparison-and-bonus content site, $350 CPA option vs 35% rev-share — picks rev-share for repeat-player heavy operators.

See: gambling sports betting

Gambling: sports betting

Traffic & geos

DraftKings/FanDuel-tier sports-betting affiliate vertical (state-by-state US).

Sports-betting affiliate offers in the US went from zero-to-massive 2018–2024 after PASPA was overturned. Each US state legalizes separately — affiliates need state-by-state geo-targeting and state-specific operator deals (DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Caesars, ESPN BET). CPA $100–$400 per qualified depositor, frequently with rev-share alternatives. Heavy regulatory oversight per state: NJ DGE, PA PGCB, NY NYSGC, etc.

Example: DraftKings affiliate runs $250-CPA NY-only offer in Q3 NFL season, traffic from a YouTube channel reviewing player props — blended CPA $185.

See: gambling online casino, cpa

GDPR

Compliance & regulatory

EU regulation on personal-data processing — applies globally to EU users.

GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) is the EU's 2018 privacy framework. Any site collecting personal data from EU residents must: get explicit opt-in consent, document the legal basis, allow data export and deletion, and report breaches within 72 hours. Fines: up to 4% of global revenue. For affiliate marketers: cookie-banner CMPs (Klaro, OneTrust, Iubenda), DPAs with all data processors, and Consent Mode v2 on Google tags.

Example: Latvian supervisory authority fined a German DTC brand €240k in 2023 for a non-compliant cookie banner that loaded ad pixels before consent.

See: klaro, consent mode v2, compliance, ccpa

Geo-targeting

Ad-tech

Restricting ad delivery to specific countries / regions / cities.

Geo-targeting is the campaign setting that scopes delivery to a country, state/region, DMA, or postcode. Tier-1 / Tier-2 / Tier-3 grouping is the default for affiliate operators. Mid-campaign tightening (drop the worst-converting state) is a standard CPA-reduction lever. Cities and zip-targeting are usually only available on programmatic / DV360 / Meta — most native networks stop at country + region.

Example: US auto-insurance lead-gen pulled CA, NY, FL out of the campaign at week 3 — no-fault states and litigious markets had 2× the scrub rate. Blended CPL dropped from $38 to $29.

See: tier 1, tier 2, tier 3, safelist

Google Ads Policy

Compliance & regulatory

Google Ads' published policy framework — restricted/disallowed industries, content, and tactics.

Google Ads Policy (https://support.google.com/adspolicy) is the canonical published rules-set governing what's allowed on Google Search, YouTube, Display, and Discover ads. Restricted industries: gambling (state-by-state US), pharmacy (NABP only), financial products (specific licensing), crypto (limited list of pre-approved exchanges). Disallowed: weight-loss claims, miracle cures, deceptive content, doorway pages. Strikes are now permanent-account-level in 2024–2026 — three policy strikes within 90 days = permanent account termination.

Example: Operator running a borderline nutra creative on Google Search receives a 7-day account suspension (first warning) — has 90 days to avoid two more before permanent termination.

See: facebook policy, compliance

Google Consent Mode v2

Compliance & regulatory

Google's framework for sending consent signals with hits.

Consent Mode v2 is the Google framework where every Google tag (GA4, Ads, GTM) reads two signals — ad_storage and analytics_storage — and adapts its behavior based on user consent. Mandatory in EU since March 2024 for ad measurement to keep working in conversion modeling. Requires CMP integration on the front-end.

Example: Klaro CMP feeds Consent Mode v2 ad_storage='denied' on rejected users → Google Ads serves cookieless pings → conversion modeling fills the gap with statistical attribution.

See: klaro, compliance, gtm

Gross margin

Metrics

Revenue minus COGS, expressed as a percent.

Gross margin is the percent of revenue left after cost of goods sold. For a $100 AOV product with $40 COGS + fulfillment, gross margin is 60%. Margin is the upper bound on what you can pay to acquire — your breakeven CPA equals AOV × margin. Operators in low-margin verticals (drop-ship e-com, 30–40% margin) are forced into LTV plays; high-margin verticals (info products, 80%+ margin) can outbid everyone on first-purchase.

Example: ClickBank info-product at $97 AOV, 75% network commission, 90% gross margin upstream → affiliate effective margin is the commission rate minus refunds (~10%). Net 65%.

See: aov, breakeven, ltv

GTM (Google Tag Manager)

Tools

Tag-deployment system for analytics + ads.

GTM (Google Tag Manager) is the dominant tag-deployment system. One snippet on the page, then deploy/remove individual analytics + ads + tracking tags from a UI without re-deploying code. Most affiliate sites and DTC stores run GTM. Server-side GTM (sGTM) is the more advanced setup — moves tag firing to your own server for ITP/ETP resilience.

Example: DTC store runs GTM with 14 tags (GA4, Meta pixel, TikTok, Pinterest, Google Ads, Klaviyo, etc.). Migrating to sGTM on a Cloudflare Worker recovered 18% of pixel events lost to iOS Safari ITP.

See: consent mode v2, pixel, capi

Halo / spillover effect

Metrics

Lift in unattributed channels driven by paid spend on other channels.

Halo (or spillover) is the secondary lift in branded search, direct, and organic-social conversions caused by paid-spend awareness in another channel. Most often seen with TV, YouTube, and CTV — branded search rises 20–80% on weeks with heavy upper-funnel spend. Affiliate operators typically don't capture halo benefit; advertisers do, which is why some advertisers will pay an affiliate-rate premium even on under-attributed channels.

Example: DTC brand running CTV with $0.20 CPM spends $80K in March; branded-search Google volume rises 38% the same month, driving an extra $120K direct-response revenue not credited to the CTV buy.

See: incrementality, attribution

Header bidding

Ad-tech

Publisher-side auction that calls multiple SSPs in parallel before AdServer.

Header bidding is a publisher-side auction technique where multiple SSPs (Prebid, AdX, Amazon, AppNexus, Criteo) are called in parallel from the page header, each returns a bid, the highest bid is passed to the ad server. Replaces 'waterfall' (sequential SSP calls) which historically under-monetized publishers. Header bidding lifts publisher RPMs 20–40% on average. Standard implementation: Prebid.js wrapper.

Example: Publisher running waterfall at $4.10 RPM switches to Prebid header-bidding with 7 SSPs — RPM rises to $5.85 over 30 days as competition between SSPs lifts cleared CPM.

See: prebid, rpm, ecpm

Headline

Creative

The first line of an ad — primary CTR driver in native and search.

The headline is the dominant CTR driver in native and search ads. On native (Taboola/Outbrain/MGID), headline + thumbnail together account for 80%+ of CTR variance. Operators test 8–20 headline variants per concept. Patterns that consistently win: numbered lists ('7 signs you have…'), discovery framing ('What [authority] doesn't want you to know'), specificity ('Maine doctors say…'), and contrast ('Why this 64-year-old looks 40').

Example: Joint-pain advertorial tests 14 headlines on Outbrain at $20 each: top 3 are all 'numbered list' format ('7 silent signs of…'), bottom 3 are all 'general benefit' ('Stop joint pain naturally') — operator iterates only the winners going forward.

See: thumbnail, ctr

IAB

Ad-tech

Interactive Advertising Bureau — industry standards body.

IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) is the ad-tech industry's standards body. Maintains TCF (consent), oRTB (auction protocol), VAST (video tags), VPAID (video interactive), ads.txt (publisher authorization), and the MRC viewability standard. Sub-orgs: IAB Tech Lab (technical specs), IAB (industry-policy and events). Affiliate marketers brush against IAB standards via TCF (consent), ads.txt (programmatic eligibility), and oRTB (programmatic auctions).

Example: Affiliate review site adds an ads.txt file in 2025 listing its authorized SSPs (Google, Magnite, PubMatic) — required to be programmatic-eligible for tier-1 buyers using IAB's ads.txt-validation step in their bidder.

See: tcf, ortb

IAB TCF (v2.2)

Compliance & regulatory

IAB's Transparency and Consent Framework for downstream consent-signaling.

IAB Transparency and Consent Framework (TCF, currently v2.2) is the technical standard for signaling user consent to ad-tech vendors downstream of the CMP. Defines a TC string (encoded user choices for purposes 1–10 and 700+ vendors) that's passed in the bidstream. Mandatory for EU traffic on most major SSPs and DSPs. v2.2 (May 2023) tightened legitimate-interest carve-outs and required specific purpose-by-purpose consent.

Example: EU traffic with TCF 2.2 signal showing user denied 'precise geolocation' and 'create profiles for personalized advertising' — Google AdX bid responses fall 22% on that traffic vs same user with full consent.

See: cmp, gdpr

Incrementality

Metrics

The portion of measured conversions actually caused by the ad.

Incrementality is the gold-standard metric: of the conversions reported, what percentage would not have happened without the ad? Measured via geo holdout tests, ghost ads, or pre-post panels. Most direct-response ad platforms over-report conversions because they count conversions that would have happened organically. Brand-aware advertisers run quarterly incrementality tests to recalibrate ROAS targets — often discovering the platform-reported ROAS is 2–3× the incremental ROAS.

Example: DTC brand runs a 3-week geo-holdout on Meta in 8 mid-size US DMAs: revenue in held-out DMAs falls 11%, in active DMAs holds flat → incremental ROAS = 1.4× vs platform-reported 3.2×.

See: roas, attribution

IVT (Invalid Traffic)

Compliance & regulatory

Bot, click-farm, or otherwise non-human ad traffic.

IVT (invalid traffic) is the umbrella term for non-genuine clicks: bots, click farms, datacenter IPs, residential-proxy abuse, automated browser scripts. Networks classify IVT as GIVT (general — easy to filter) and SIVT (sophisticated — needs ML). DSPs and advertisers buy through IAS, DV, MOAT to filter. For arbitrage operators, high IVT on inbound traffic kills downstream RPM (Google strips fake clicks before paying).

Example: Tonic strips 11% of inbound clicks as IVT before paying. Operator's tracker shows 100k clicks; Tonic's revenue report shows 89k 'valid' — the gap is the IVT haircut.

See: mfa, search arbitrage, compliance, fingerprinting

Klaro / consent banner

Compliance & regulatory

GDPR-compliant cookie consent management.

Klaro is an open-source consent management platform (CMP) for GDPR/ePrivacy compliance. Wraps third-party scripts (analytics, ads, embeds) and prevents them firing until consent. Required for any site serving EU users. Alternatives: OneTrust, CookieBot, Iubenda. mediabuyer.site runs Klaro.

Example: Klaro config blocks GA4, Meta pixel, Taboola pixel, and Hotjar by default. Banner gives 3 options (accept all / reject all / customize). Hits fire only after user consent.

See: compliance, consent mode v2, gdpr

LanderLab

Tools

Landing-page builder + hosting for affiliate marketers.

LanderLab is a hosted LP-builder aimed at performance marketers — drag-drop editor, fast hosting, A/B-split features, integrations with the major trackers. From $49/mo. Competing products: PureLander, AdPage, Convertri, Unbounce (more enterprise). Particularly common among native-traffic operators who don't want to spin up Wordpress/Shopify per campaign.

Example: Operator launches 8 advertorial variants for a single offer in a day on LanderLab — each variant gets its own subdomain, A/B split tested via the tracker.

See: lp, advertorial, prelander

Landing page (LP)

Creative

The page where a paid click lands.

Landing page is the destination of a paid click. In direct-response native, the LP is usually the sales page (post-prelander) or the offer page directly. CVR optimization on the LP is mostly about above-the-fold copy, social proof, urgency, and form length. Most beginner mistakes happen here — one-page sites with weak offers, no social proof, slow load.

Example: Offer page reduced from 3 above-fold form fields to 1 (email only) lifted lead CR from 6.2% to 9.8% — phone capture moved to step-2.

See: prelander, cvr, advertorial, landerlab

Last-click attribution

Tracking

Crediting 100% of a conversion to the most recent ad click.

Last-click attribution gives 100% credit for a conversion to the last ad touchpoint before the sale. Default model on most affiliate networks and trackers because it's simple and matches the 'who do I pay' affiliate-network logic. Critique: under-credits awareness channels (top-of-funnel native, video, display); favors retargeting and branded search.

Example: User saw 4 native ads over 12 days, then searched the brand on Google and clicked a paid-search ad. Last-click gives 100% credit to Google Search; the native spend that built the awareness gets zero in the report.

See: attribution, multi touch

Lead quality

Metrics

The downstream conversion / contact rate of leads sent to an advertiser.

Lead quality is the post-submission performance of leads — answer-rate on phone, qualification-rate, install-rate, sale-rate downstream. Advertisers running CPL offers track this religiously and either scrub fake leads (no payout) or down-tier publishers whose leads don't convert. Weekly QC scrub-rates above 15% will get a publisher kicked off most CPA networks.

Example: Affiliate sending 800 auto-insurance leads/month at $32 CPL — but advertiser's contact-rate is 31% vs network average of 58%. Payout cut to $22 next month.

See: cpl, doi, ivt

Lead scrub / scrubbing

Compliance & regulatory

Network-side filtering of low-quality leads before payout.

'Scrubbing' is the post-conversion filter networks (or advertisers) apply before paying out: dedupe checks, phone-number reachability tests, geo-mismatch flags, repeat-source patterns. Common scrub rates: 5–25% on auto-insurance, 15–40% on debt-relief, 30–70% on free-trial nutra. Affiliates see 'reversed conversions' or 'pending leads' in their network dashboard — those are scrubbed leads.

Example: Debt-relief offer shows 80 leads in the affiliate dashboard at end-of-day; next morning 24 of those are reversed (30% scrub rate) — net payout $1,792 at $32 CPL on 56 paid leads.

See: lead quality, ivt

Lead-gen compliance

Compliance & regulatory

Combined TCPA + state-by-state telemarketing compliance for affiliate lead-gen.

Lead-gen compliance is the meta-discipline of running an affiliate lead-gen funnel without exposing the buyer or seller of the lead to TCPA, state-DNC, or state-unfair-trade-practices liability. Core practices in 2026: per-buyer one-to-one consent, recorded consent log, IP+timestamp+page-screenshot of the consent moment, leadid.com or jornaya tag for trans-trail, and 7-year retention of the consent record. Affiliates without these practices increasingly cannot sell to top-tier buyers.

Example: Solar lead-gen affiliate switches its funnel in Q2 2024 to log Jornaya LeadiD on every consent — drops some inventory but unlocks two new tier-1 buyers at $14/lead higher payout than the previous network.

See: tcpa tax, tcpa, lead quality

LGPD (Brazil)

Compliance & regulatory

Brazil's General Data Protection Law — GDPR-equivalent for Brazilian users.

LGPD (Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais, Law 13.709/2018, in force since 2020) is Brazil's federal data-protection statute. Functionally similar to GDPR — requires lawful basis for processing, consent for non-essential cookies, data-subject access/erasure rights. Penalties up to 2% of Brazil revenue, capped at R$50M per infraction. Affiliate operators running tracking on Brazilian traffic need a CMP (Klaro, OneTrust, etc.) and an LGPD-compliant privacy policy.

Example: Sweepstakes affiliate running Brazilian traffic on PropellerAds adds Klaro CMP with LGPD configuration in Q1 2026 — lifts cookie-banner-consent rate to 91% from a previous 'auto-accept' baseline that was technically non-compliant.

See: gdpr, ccpa, klaro

Linear attribution

Tracking

Attribution model that splits credit equally across all path touchpoints.

Linear attribution splits conversion credit equally across every touchpoint in the user's journey. If the user saw 5 ads before converting, each ad gets 20% credit. Easier to understand than time-decay or position-based models but tends to over-credit cheap, low-intent touchpoints (Display retargeting impressions). Most useful in B2B with long, heavy-touch sales cycles; less common in direct-response affiliate.

Example: B2B SaaS with 12-touch average path uses linear attribution to spread MQL credit across LinkedIn ads (3 touches), webinar (1 touch), email (5 touches), search (3 touches) — guides quarterly budget allocation.

See: attribution, first click, last click

Listicle

Creative

List-format prelander or article: 'top 5 X' / '7 signs of Y'.

A listicle is a list-format article — '7 worst foods for joint pain,' 'top 5 medicare plans,' '9 things every blood-sugar sufferer needs.' Used as a prelander to warm up the visitor before the offer pitch. Native networks accept listicles more readily than advertorials because they look like editorial content. Conversion rates are typically lower than advertorials but click-through from ad to listicle is higher (better story curiosity loop).

Example: Joint-pain listicle '7 surprising causes of knee pain after 50' converts at 1.4% to the offer page on Taboola US — half the conversion rate of the same offer's advertorial but 2.5× the on-page time.

See: advertorial, prelander, quiz funnel

Lookalike audience

Ad-tech

Algorithmic audience built to resemble a seed of high-value users.

A lookalike audience is built by an ad platform's ML model to resemble a seed list of high-value users (purchasers, repeat buyers, free-trial-converters). Seed quality matters more than seed size — a 500-purchaser seed often outperforms a 10K-website-visitor seed. Tighter percentages (1% LAL) are higher-quality but smaller; broader (5–10%) sacrifice fit for reach. Meta's lookalike is the most-tested; Google's Customer Match performs similarly with a different LAL implementation.

Example: DTC supplement brand uploads its top-quartile-LTV customer list (8,400 emails) as a Meta seed; 1% LAL produces 2.1M reach in the US; CPA on the LAL audience is 28% lower than broad-targeting baseline.

See: look alike, capi

LTV

Metrics

Lifetime value — total revenue from one customer over time.

LTV (lifetime value, sometimes called CLV) is the total gross profit a customer produces over their relationship. For subscription products LTV is months-of-stay × MRR × margin; for e-com it includes repeat purchases. Operators with strong LTV can outbid ROAS-only buyers at the auction because they value a $50 first-purchase customer at $200 over 24 months. Misuse: trailing-12-month LTV is hindsight; cohort-projected LTV is what your bidding model needs.

Example: DTC supplement brand: $52 first-order AOV but 38% of buyers re-order quarterly for ~14 months. 24-month projected LTV = $187. Bidding off LTV instead of AOV unlocks a 3× larger addressable audience.

See: aov, cac, payback

MaxBounty

Networks

Major CPA / CPL affiliate network — finance, lead-gen, sweeps.

MaxBounty (Canadian, founded 2004) is one of the largest CPA / CPL affiliate networks, particularly strong in financial services, lead-gen (auto-insurance, education, debt), sweeps, and dating. Strict approval — they reject most applicants. Weekly payouts on Net-15 to qualified affiliates. Public EPC numbers on offer cards skew low because every approved affiliate counts.

Example: Approved MaxBounty affiliate runs auto-insurance lead offer at $32 CPL, 4% LP CVR on Taboola → effective EPC $1.28. Hits $40k/month at scale.

See: clickbank, cpalead, everflow, cpa, cpl

Meta Ads Policy

Compliance & regulatory

Meta's (Facebook + Instagram) published advertising policy.

Meta Ads Policy (transparency.meta.com/policies) governs what's allowed on Facebook, Instagram, and Audience Network. Restricted: weight loss (no before/after, no body-zoom, no specific scale claims), housing/employment/credit (Special Ad Categories — limited targeting), social issues (registration required). Banned: cryptocurrency products in most geos, MLM, low-quality landing pages, sensational health claims. Account-level enforcement: rejected ads → restricted ad account → disabled → BM-level disable.

Example: Skincare advertiser tests 14 creatives on Meta in one week; 6 are flagged for 'before/after personal attribute,' 2 are auto-rejected for 'sensational health claim' — operator burns half the launch week on policy iteration before scaling the survivors.

See: google policy, compliance

MFA (Made-for-Advertising)

Compliance & regulatory

Sites built primarily to monetize ad placements with thin content.

MFA (made-for-advertising) is the industry's term for low-quality publishers built primarily to harvest programmatic ad revenue. ANA's 2023 study estimated 15% of programmatic spend lands on MFA sites. From a buyer perspective, MFA = wasted spend; from an operator perspective, MFA = margin (until Google AdSense changes the rules).

Example: Slideshow site with 12-tile pagination, 8 ad slots per page, 200 words of AI-generated content per slide. Pure MFA — burned by AdSense in the November 2024 enforcement wave.

See: search arbitrage, ivt, doorway page

MGID

Networks

A native ad network with strong Tier-2 and Tier-3 inventory.

MGID is the third major native network. They are stronger in Tier-2/3 markets (Eastern Europe, LATAM, SEA) and have lower CPC floors than Taboola/Outbrain — making them attractive for offers that need cheap top-of-funnel traffic. Their click-quality is more variable, so most operators tighten safelists / blocklists hard.

Example: Crypto-quiz prelander gets banned on Taboola in week 1, runs cleanly on MGID for 6 weeks. CPC is half. Conversion rate is also half.

See: taboola, outbrain, revcontent

MMM (media-mix modeling)

Metrics

Top-down statistical modeling of incremental contribution by channel.

MMM (media-mix modeling, sometimes 'marketing mix modeling') is the top-down statistical method of estimating each channel's incremental contribution to revenue using historical data. Pre-existed the cookie era, came back into fashion as bottom-up attribution decayed under signal-loss. Common tools: Robyn (Meta open-source), LightweightMMM (Google), Recast, Cassandra. Output: per-channel saturation curves and recommended budget allocations.

Example: DTC brand runs Robyn-based MMM on 18 months of weekly spend data — finds Meta is saturating at $40K/week with diminishing returns, while CTV and YouTube are still at the linear part of their curves — re-allocates $8K/week from Meta to CTV.

See: incrementality, attribution

MMP (Mobile Measurement Partner)

Tracking

Mobile-app attribution platform — AppsFlyer, Adjust, Singular, Branch.

An MMP (Mobile Measurement Partner) is the third-party app-attribution system that ingests SDK events from a mobile app and credits installs / in-app events back to ad networks. Major MMPs: AppsFlyer, Adjust, Singular, Branch, Kochava. Required for any serious mobile-app UA campaign — the SDK normalizes attribution across iOS (SKAdNetwork) and Android (Play Install Referrer + GAID).

Example: Casual-game CPI campaign: AppsFlyer SDK in the app, integrated with Applovin, Unity Ads, ironSource, Meta. Each network's claimed installs get reconciled through AppsFlyer's last-touch attribution.

See: cpi, attribution, postback

MRC

Ad-tech

Media Rating Council — accredits viewability and IVT measurement.

MRC (Media Rating Council) is the US-based independent accreditor of ad-measurement methodologies. Sets the canonical viewability standard (50% pixels for 1+ second display, 2+ video) and accredits IVT-detection vendors (DoubleVerify, IAS, MOAT). Tier-1 advertisers contract MRC-accredited measurement as a buying requirement.

Example: Programmatic display campaign buys on a 'MRC-accredited viewability ≥85%' floor — DSP filters out non-compliant inventory pre-bid; effective CPM rises but viewable-impression rate matches the requirement.

See: viewability, ivt

Multi-touch attribution (MTA)

Tracking

Distributing conversion credit across multiple touchpoints.

MTA (multi-touch attribution) splits credit for a conversion across the touchpoints in the user journey. Common models: linear (equal split), time-decay (recent gets more), position-based / U-shaped (40/20/40 to first, middle, last), data-driven / algorithmic (machine-learned weights). Requires unified click-tracking across all paid sources — usually a tracker or a CDP. Hard to do honestly when networks each over-count themselves.

Example: Time-decay MTA: native ad-click 14 days ago = 8%, retargeted display 6 days ago = 22%, branded search yesterday = 70%. Better than last-click but still imperfect.

See: attribution, last click, tracker

MyLead

Networks

Polish / EU-strong CPA + content-locker network.

MyLead is a Poland-based CPA network with strong inventory in EU markets, content-locking offers, sweeps, surveys, dating, and gaming. Lower bar to entry than MaxBounty, weekly net-7 payouts, multi-currency support (PLN, EUR, USD). Particularly active among Eastern European operators and beginners scaling sweeps in tier-2/3 geos.

Example: Polish operator runs a 'win-an-iPhone' MyLead SOI sweepstakes in DE/FR/PL on push — average $1.40 payout at $0.006 CPC, 6% LP CR → $0.084 EPC.

See: maxbounty, cpalead, soi

NAD (US BBB self-regulator)

Compliance & regulatory

National Advertising Division — BBB's self-regulator for US advertising.

NAD (National Advertising Division of BBB National Programs) is the US self-regulator for advertising substantiation. Hears competitor and consumer challenges to ad claims, issues recommended modifications. NAD decisions are widely-read by FTC and frequently presage federal-level action. Ranges of cases: comparative-claim disputes (where competitor A challenges B's '#1' claim), substantiation challenges to performance claims, online-influencer-disclosure cases.

Example: Joint-supplement competitor challenges 'fastest pain relief' claim at NAD in 2025; NAD recommends modification; the advertiser changes to '8-week clinical trial showed measurable joint comfort improvement,' avoiding both the NAD finding and a follow-on FTC referral.

See: ftc, compliance

Native ad

Ad-tech

An ad designed to look like editorial content within a publisher.

A native ad is a paid placement that visually matches the surrounding content. Taboola, Outbrain, MGID, RevContent are the dominant native-ad networks; their ads appear under articles ('You may also like…'). Native ads are sold mostly on a CPC basis and have lower CPMs than display banners but higher CTRs and very different audience signals.

Example: Article-end widget on USA Today shows three Taboola units styled to match the publisher's font and image ratio — only the small 'Sponsored' label distinguishes them.

See: taboola, outbrain, mgid, advertorial, content rec

Nutra

Traffic & geos

Nutritional supplements vertical — weight loss, joint, skin, brain, blood sugar.

'Nutra' is the affiliate-marketing umbrella for nutritional-supplement offers: weight loss, joint pain, skin/anti-aging, hair loss, ED, prostate, blood sugar, brain/nootropics, sleep. Historically the highest-payout, highest-compliance-risk vertical. Front-end products are usually a $39–$89 bottle; profit comes from rebill subscription and upsells. Network categories include MaxBounty, ClickBank, CrakRevenue, MyLead, Adcombo, Mobidea.

Example: Operator running US weight-loss nutra on Outbrain at $0.31 CPC, advertorial → VSL → checkout funnel, $97 AOV with rebill, blended CPA $54 vs $84 payout for a 36% margin.

See: nutra weight loss, nutra male enhancement, vsl, rebill

Nutra blood sugar

Traffic & geos

Blood-sugar / metabolic-health supplement sub-vertical.

Blood-sugar nutra is the fastest-growing nutra sub-vertical 2023–2026, riding GLP-1 awareness. Products are usually berberine, cinnamon, chromium, or proprietary blends marketed as 'natural metformin' or 'support healthy blood sugar.' Heavy advertorial traffic. Highly regulated — FTC has warned multiple advertisers in 2024–2025 against direct disease claims. Payouts $50–$95 CPA US.

Example: Berberine blood-sugar offer at $89 AOV runs on MGID at $0.21 CPC, advertorial → VSL → checkout. Compliance team rejects 60% of submitted creatives over claim-language; survivors clear $61 CPA blended.

See: nutra, ftc, advertorial

Nutra joint pain

Traffic & geos

Joint pain, knee pain, arthritis supplement sub-vertical.

Joint-pain nutra targets the 50+ demographic with collagen, glucosamine, turmeric, and CBD-style joint supplements. High-LTV demographic with strong rebill retention. Native networks (Taboola, Outbrain, MGID) all permit it with reasonable compliance — no over-claiming, no fake doctor endorsements, no before/after pain-scale imagery. CPAs $35–$75 in the US.

Example: Collagen joint-supplement offer with $79 AOV and 4-month average rebill life clears $58 CPA on Outbrain US targeting age 55+ via lookalike-source-ID seeding.

See: nutra, advertorial

Nutra male enhancement

Traffic & geos

ED and male-enhancement supplement sub-vertical — restricted on most major platforms.

Male enhancement (ED, testosterone, prostate) nutra is restricted on Google Ads, Meta, and most premium native platforms. Runs primarily on pop, push, adult tube networks (TrafficJunky, ExoClick), email, and tier-2 native (MGID, RevContent). Payouts are high — $80–$160 CPA on tier-1, $35–$60 on tier-2 — but creative compliance, refund rates, and chargebacks are challenging. Most US offers route through ClickBank.

Example: ClickBank prostate offer at $138 CPA pays out on a Tonic search-arbitrage funnel: Outbrain → 'top 5 prostate signs' RSOC page → SERP click → ClickBank advertiser ad → checkout. Compliance happens because the operator never actually ran the male-enhancement creative on Outbrain.

See: nutra, clickbank, search arbitrage

Nutra skincare

Traffic & geos

Anti-aging, eye cream, and skin-tag-removal sub-vertical.

Skincare nutra includes anti-aging serums, eye creams, dark-spot correctors, skin-tag removers, retinol gummies, and collagen drinks. Less compliance-heat than weight-loss but advertorial-heavy. Front-end SKU $39–$79, classic 'free-trial-with-rebill' funnels common in the 2010s are largely banned now. Modern playbook: straight-sale checkout with clearly disclosed subscription option. Native and Meta both run skincare.

Example: Eye-cream advertorial → checkout funnel on Taboola US: $0.36 CPC, 1.8% LP CVR, $69 AOV with 22% take rate on the 30-day rebill — blended LTV-adjusted CPA target $58.

See: nutra, advertorial, rebill

Nutra weight loss

Traffic & geos

Weight-loss supplement sub-vertical — most-policed nutra category.

Weight-loss nutra is the largest sub-vertical inside nutra and the most heavily policed. FTC actions on weight-loss claims go back to the 2014 'Operation Failed Resolution' sweep. Common products: GLP-1-style 'fat burners,' apple-cider-vinegar gummies, ketogenic supplements, metabolism-boosters. Native networks restrict before/after imagery, scale claims, and 'doctors hate this' headlines. Payouts $40–$100 CPA on tier-1 traffic.

Example: Apple-cider-vinegar gummies offer at $80 AOV with 35-day rebill clears at $52 CPA on Outbrain US — but only with a quiz-funnel prelander that sidesteps direct weight-loss claims at the ad level.

See: nutra, ftc, advertorial, prelander

Offer wall

Ad-tech

The advertiser-and-payout listing inside an affiliate network's dashboard.

The offer wall is the dashboard view inside an affiliate network where you browse available advertisers, payouts, geos, allowed traffic types, and caps. ClickBank and MaxBounty have public-ish offer walls (some pre-approval); private networks (Adcombo, Mobidea) gate the wall behind affiliate-manager approval. Modern offer walls include EPC averages, daily-cap status, and payout-history charts.

Example: MaxBounty offer wall shows 38 active US auto-insurance offers ranked by network-EPC; affiliate filters by 'allowed: native traffic' and shortlists three for testing.

See: maxbounty, clickbank, everflow

OpenRTB (oRTB)

Ad-tech

Open standard for real-time programmatic ad auctions.

OpenRTB (or oRTB) is the IAB-maintained protocol specification for real-time bidding auctions. Defines the JSON schema for bid requests (impression, user, geo, device fields) and bid responses. Currently at version 2.6 (2024) with discussions around 3.0. Every major SSP and DSP implements oRTB. Modern affiliate marketers don't write to oRTB directly — they buy through DSPs that abstract it — but the field-set defines what targeting is possible.

Example: Programmatic CTV buyer's DSP transmits a 14KB oRTB 2.6 bid request with device-IFA, IP-geo, content-genre, and contextual-bundle-ID — DSP runs ML-bid in <50ms and returns a bid response.

See: dsp, ssp

Outbrain

Networks

The second-largest native ad network globally.

Outbrain is Taboola's main competitor, with similar publisher placements and a similar smart-bidding system ('Conversion Bid Strategy'). They merged-and-unmerged with Taboola in 2020, then bought Teads in 2024 to enter video/CTV. Their inventory tilts more toward Tier-1 EU publishers than Taboola's, which is more US-heavy.

Example: EU-focused supplement campaign: Outbrain delivers 2.4× the volume Taboola does in DE/FR/IT at similar CPC. Operator runs Outbrain primary, Taboola backup.

See: taboola, mgid, native ad, cbs

Payback period

Metrics

Months until cumulative gross profit per customer recovers CAC.

Payback is the time it takes to recoup acquisition cost from a customer's gross profit. SaaS norm is 12–18 months. E-com DTC norm is 0–3 months (most try to be first-purchase profitable). Long-payback businesses need patient capital and tight cohort tracking; short-payback businesses have flexibility but rarely scale beyond their organic ceiling.

Example: Subscription supplement brand: $58 CAC, $19/month gross profit per active subscriber, 71% month-2 retention. Payback ≈ 4 months. Quarterly cohorts confirm.

See: cac, ltv

Pixel

Tracking

1×1 image embedded in a confirmation page to fire a conversion.

A pixel is a tiny image (or JS snippet) loaded by the user's browser when they reach a thank-you page, firing a conversion event back to the ad platform. Browser-side, so subject to ad-blockers, ITP/ETP, cookie expiry. Most operators run server-side (postback) where possible and pixel only as backup.

Example: Meta pixel + Taboola pixel + GA4 event all fire on /thank-you. Postback fires from the offer's server. Belt-and-suspenders for attribution loss to ITP.

See: postback, tracker, capi

PopAds

Networks

Self-serve popunder network — known for cheap tier-3 traffic.

PopAds is a self-serve popunder ad network founded in 2010, known for the cheapest popunder inventory in tier-3 geos (Indonesia, Vietnam, Egypt, Nigeria) — sub-$0.0003 CPV is common. Inventory quality is low and IVT is high; experienced operators run aggressive blocklists and demand verifiable LP→offer postbacks before scaling. Self-serve, $10 minimum deposit, Bitcoin payouts available.

Example: Affiliate testing a Tier-3 sweepstakes offer launches a $50/day PopAds campaign in Indonesia at $0.00018 CPV — within 48 hours has data on 27 publisher source IDs and cuts to 4 that show real conversion.

See: popunder, popcash, ivt

PopCash

Networks

Romanian-based popunder network — global tier-2/3 inventory.

PopCash is a Romanian popunder network founded 2012, smaller than PopAds and PropellerAds but sometimes cheaper on specific tier-2 geos (Italy, Spain, Poland, Turkey). $5 minimum deposit, self-serve dashboard, supports targeting by browser/OS/device/keyword. Used by gambling, dating, and crypto offers.

Example: Crypto-recovery affiliate runs Italy popunder traffic on PopCash at $0.0011 CPV after layering blocklists across 150 publisher IDs — cleaner than PopAds at the same price.

See: popunder, popads, propellerads

Popunder

Ad-tech

A pop-style ad format — a new browser window opens behind the active one.

A popunder ad is a full-window ad that opens behind the user's active tab — they discover it when they close the parent window. PropellerAds, PopAds, Adsterra, and PopCash run massive popunder inventories. CPVs are low ($0.0003–$0.005) and intent is correspondingly weak. Best fits: sweeps, push-list builders, dating, mobile content. Compliance teams at Google/Meta consider popunders abusive and reject any LP that links to them.

Example: PropellerAds popunder buy at $0.0017 CPV sending US tier-1 mobile to a sweepstakes prelander. CTR-to-offer 12%, lead-CR 4%, EPC $0.014.

See: cpv, push traffic

Postback (S2S)

Tracking

Server-to-server conversion notification.

A postback (also called server-to-server / S2S tracking) is an HTTP call from the offer's server to the tracker's server when a conversion fires. Carries the click ID and conversion value. More reliable than pixel-based tracking — no JS, no ad-blockers, no cookies. Standard for affiliate networks.

Example: MaxBounty fires GET https://tracker.example.com/postback?cid={cid}&payout={payout} on every confirmed lead. Tracker logs the conversion against the original click.

See: tracker, pixel, click id, fingerprinting

Prebid.js

Ad-tech

Open-source header-bidding wrapper — industry standard since 2017.

Prebid.js is the open-source JavaScript header-bidding wrapper that's become the industry standard since ~2017. Maintained by IAB Tech Lab and a coalition of vendors. Lets publishers integrate 100+ SSPs without bespoke code per partner. Fork: Prebid Server (server-side header bidding, lighter on page-load). Most premium publishers (CNN, Bloomberg, NYT) run Prebid as the foundation of their monetization stack.

Example: Mid-size publisher (12M monthly visits) deploys Prebid.js with 9 SSP adapters — page-weight increases 180KB, RPM lifts $1.20 — net positive after the page-speed cost.

See: header bidding

Prelander

Creative

An intermediate page between the ad and the sales page.

A prelander (sometimes 'pre-lander' or 'bridge page') sits between the ad click and the offer page. Common formats: quiz, calculator, advertorial, listicle. The job is to warm the user up, qualify them, and improve the offer-page CVR. Prelanders are the highest-leverage creative asset most operators have — a 2× CVR lift on the prelander is worth more than a 2× CTR lift on the ad.

Example: 5-question skin-quiz prelander before a serum offer: pulled CR from 1.9% to 4.1% on the same offer page. Same traffic, 2.2× revenue.

See: lp, advertorial, cvr, vsl

PropellerAds

Networks

Push, pop, and surveys network — popunder traffic at global scale.

PropellerAds is one of the two largest pop/push networks (the other being Adsterra), founded 2011. Inventory is dominated by popunder, push notification, and 'survey-exit' formats. Traffic is global but skews tier-2/3. Self-serve dashboard, low minimum deposit ($100), aggressive sales team. Used by sweepstakes, dating, and crypto advertisers who can't pass native compliance.

Example: Sweepstakes affiliate runs $500/day on PropellerAds popunder targeting Brazil and Mexico — CPV $0.0009, blended LP→offer CVR 0.8%, clears $1.42 EPC.

See: popunder, push traffic, cpv

Publisher

Ad-tech

The site running the ad widget — never displayed by mediabuyer.

Publisher is the site that runs a network's ad widget — e.g. Bloomberg.com, USA Today, Yahoo, regional newspapers. mediabuyer indexes ad creatives, not publisher placements: showing 'this Taboola ad ran on Bloomberg' is not useful to operators (Taboola decides where ads run, advertisers don't pick publishers individually) and surfaces sensitive widget IDs. We never render publisher in the UI.

Example: Premium publisher widget on Bloomberg.com shows 6 Taboola tiles — the operator never directly bid on Bloomberg; Taboola allocated the impressions based on the campaign's audience signal.

See: site id, branding text, content rec

Push notification traffic

Ad-tech

Browser push-notification ads — opt-in style alerts.

Push traffic is the inventory format where users who previously opted into a publisher's browser push notifications receive ad messages. Networks: PropellerAds, RichAds, MegaPush, Adsterra, EvaDav. Lower than native intent but higher than popunder. CPCs run $0.001–$0.05. Particularly strong for sweeps, dating, crypto, gambling, and Tier-2/3 e-com. Apple removed Safari push in iOS 16, killing iOS-mobile push inventory; desktop and Android still work.

Example: RichAds push campaign: $0.008 CPC blended across DE/AT/CH for a binary-options offer. CR-to-deposit 3.1%, EPC $0.024.

See: popunder, cpv

Quiz funnel

Creative

Multi-step quiz prelander that personalizes the recommendation.

A quiz funnel asks the visitor 4–8 questions ('what's your age range?', 'how long have you had this issue?', 'have you tried X before?') then 'recommends' the offer based on the answers. Conversion rates are 40–80% higher than static prelanders because the visitor has invested cognitive effort. Modern quiz funnels are the dominant prelander pattern in nutra, dating, finance, and edu lead-gen.

Example: Skin-cream quiz funnel ('5 questions to find the right serum for your skin type') converts 4.1% to checkout vs 2.2% on the same offer with a static advertorial.

See: prelander, advertorial, vsl

Rebill / continuity

Monetization

Subscription billing pattern that follows the front-end purchase.

Rebill (also 'continuity') is the subscription billing that follows the front-end purchase: the customer pays $89 today and is enrolled in a $89/month auto-shipment unless they cancel. Rebills carry the lion's share of nutra and supplement profitability — front-end CPA is often near or above front-end revenue, with rebill providing the actual margin. Compliance: clear disclosure of rebill terms required; FTC has settled multiple cases over hidden continuity (Apex Capital, etc.).

Example: Nutra weight-loss offer with $79 front-end and 4-month average rebill life: front-end loses $4/customer at $83 CPA, rebill produces $312 LTV at 60% margin = $187 net profit per acquired customer.

See: ltv, ftc

Redirect

Tracking

HTTP-level forwarding from ad-click to offer URL via the tracker.

A redirect is an HTTP 302 (sometimes meta refresh) that forwards a click from the ad-network's outbound URL through the tracker to the offer or LP. Each hop loses ~50–150ms and a small percentage of users (mobile bounce). Modern trackers offer 'direct-tracking' modes (LP loads from your domain, tracker logs via JS or pixel + postback) to skip the redirect — Facebook Ads explicitly penalizes redirects in delivery scoring.

Example: User clicks Taboola ad → 302 to tracker.example.com/click?id=42 → 302 to offer.com/?cid=tk_8f2a91. Two redirects, ~180ms latency, 4% of mobile users bounce on the chain.

See: tracker, click id

RedTrack

Tools

Click tracker built for direct-response media buyers.

RedTrack is a tracker similar to Voluum/BeMob, with a strong native + push integration set. Pricing from $124/mo. Differentiator: deep direct-integrations with Meta, TikTok, and the major native networks for cost-pulling and conversion-pushing.

Example: Meta + Taboola operator on RedTrack: cost auto-pulled hourly from both networks, conversions pushed back as CAPI events. No manual reconciliation.

See: voluum, bemob, tracker, clickflare

RevContent

Networks

A US-focused native ad network with mid-Tier publisher inventory.

RevContent is a US-leaning native network, smaller than Taboola/Outbrain but still meaningful for direct-response operators. Inventory skews toward mid-tier publishers and smaller blogs. Bid-floors and CPCs are lower than Taboola, click-quality is variable, and they don't operate the RSOC search inventory product.

Example: Operator pivots a banned Taboola advertorial to RevContent: same creative, $0.09 CPC vs $0.21, but conversion volume drops 40% — fewer premium placements.

See: taboola, outbrain, mgid

RevenueLabs

Networks

Native ad network with focus on tier-1 English-speaking geos.

RevenueLabs (sometimes branded as Adsterra's native arm in some markets) is a mid-tier native ad network that targets US/UK/CA/AU traffic. Inventory is a mix of direct premium publisher relationships and exchange-bought traffic. Bid model is CPC-only, with daily budget caps and an account-manager workflow for advertisers spending over $5K/month. Smaller scale than Taboola or Outbrain but sometimes cheaper on the same advertorial creative.

Example: Same skincare advertorial that clears at $0.42 CPC on Taboola US clears at $0.21 CPC on RevenueLabs — but with one-tenth the daily volume and noticeably noisier conversion data.

See: taboola, outbrain, mgid, revcontent

RichAds

Networks

Push, pop, native, and search-feed ad network from a Belarusian team.

RichAds is a Belarus-origin ad network founded 2018 that runs push, pop, native, and a search-feed product (search-arbitrage friendly). Smaller than the leaders but moves fast on new formats. Notable feature: 'Premium' source tier with lower-IVT publishers at higher prices. $100 minimum deposit, self-serve.

Example: Sweepstakes affiliate splits a $500/day push budget across RichAds 'Premium' (CPC $0.04, CVR 1.1%) and standard ($0.012, CVR 0.4%) — Premium wins on EPC despite the price.

See: push traffic, propellerads, adsterra

ROAS

Metrics

Return on ad spend — revenue divided by ad spend.

ROAS (return on ad spend) is the most-used efficiency ratio in performance marketing: total revenue produced divided by ad spend. A 2× ROAS means you got $2 back for every $1 spent. ROAS does not account for COGS, fulfillment, or refunds — to know whether you are actually profitable you need margin too. Operators usually quote a 'breakeven ROAS' (1 / margin) and run above it.

ROAS = revenue / ad spend

Example: $50,000 spent on Taboola produced $90,000 in tracked revenue. ROAS = 1.8×. With a 60% gross margin, breakeven ROAS is 1.67×, so the campaign is barely profitable.

See: cpa, breakeven, margin

RPM

Monetization

Revenue per thousand pageviews — publisher-side eCPM.

RPM (revenue per mille) is what publishers earn per 1,000 page-views, including all monetization sources. AdSense RPMs run $1–$30 depending on geo/vertical/placement. Search arbitrage publishers care about Y2 RPM (revenue minus traffic cost ÷ pageviews) — anything below their CPC + 30% margin is money-losing.

RPM = (revenue / pageviews) × 1000

Example: Recipe site running AdSense + Mediavine: $24.50 session RPM in Q4, drops to $11 in February. Native traffic at $0.18 CPC needs the Q4 RPM to make Y2 work.

See: ecpm, rsoc, y2

RSOC

Monetization

Related Search on Content — Google's content-search arbitrage product.

RSOC (Related Search on Content) is the Google AdSense product that powers most search-arbitrage feeds. Site shows a list of related-search keywords, user clicks a keyword, lands on a Google search results page, and Google pays the publisher per click on the SERP ads. The 'arbitrage' is buying traffic at $0.10 native CPC and earning $0.30+ on the downstream Google SERP click. Heavily policed by AdSense — most publishers run on Tonic or System1 to insulate themselves.

Example: User clicks Taboola ad at $0.14, lands on a 'top 10 medicare plans' RSOC page, clicks the 'Medicare plans 2026' keyword block, pays out $0.41. Y2 = $0.27 per session.

See: tonic, system1, search arbitrage, y2, yahoo search partner

Safelist (allowlist)

Ad-tech

A curated list of publisher placements that converted historically.

A safelist (or allowlist) is the operator's whitelist of converting publisher site IDs. Maintained per-campaign and per-vertical. Native networks let you bid higher on safelist sites and exclude everything else once a campaign is mature. Building a good safelist takes 4–8 weeks of broad-bidding spend and is the single biggest defensive moat in mature native operations.

Example: Insurance operator's 6-month safelist: 218 Taboola siteIDs accounting for 73% of spend at $34 blended CPA. The other 1,800 site IDs combined had a $61 CPA — blocked.

See: site id, blocklist, publisher

Search arbitrage

Traffic & geos

Buying cheap native traffic to monetize on search-feed clicks.

Search arbitrage is the playbook of buying native ad traffic (Taboola/Outbrain/MGID) to a content page that monetizes via a Google or Bing search feed (RSOC). The arb is the gap between what you pay per inbound click and what you earn per outbound feed click. Margins are thin — most operators run at 20–50% gross margin and depend on volume. Risks: AdSense bans, content-policy strikes, click quality.

Example: $8K/day spend on Taboola Insurance vertical → RSOC feed via Tonic. Inbound CPC $0.16, downstream RPM $32, Y2 margin 28%. One AdSense strike kills the whole account.

See: rsoc, tonic, system1, ivt, tboost

SEO

Traffic & geos

Search engine optimization — earning organic traffic from search.

SEO is the discipline of earning organic search-engine traffic by structuring a site Google considers authoritative. For affiliate operators, SEO is the slow-but-defensible counterpart to paid native: 6–24 months to compound, but a top-3 ranking for a high-intent term can pay forever. The 2023+ Google Helpful Content update has made affiliate-SEO dramatically harder; most pure-affiliate sites have been de-ranked.

Example: Comparison site for credit-card affiliate offers: 18 months of content, 240 articles, ranks top-3 for 'best travel credit card 2026' → $42k/month organic affiliate revenue.

See: doorway page, rsoc

Shaving

Compliance & regulatory

Slang for an advertiser quietly under-counting affiliate-driven conversions.

'Shaving' is media-buyer slang for the practice of an advertiser deliberately under-attributing conversions that should have paid out to the affiliate. Some shave is unintentional (cookie-loss, attribution gaps); operators allege intentional shave when reported conversions are systematically below the affiliate's own first-party tracker. Industry remedy: server-to-server postbacks, advertiser-side audit logs, and switching networks if shave persists.

Example: Affiliate's Voluum reports 217 conversions for the day; advertiser-side dashboard reports 184. Affiliate suspects 15% shave; runs a 30-day side-by-side test before pulling traffic to a competitor.

See: postback, tracker

Signal loss

Tracking

Decline in measurable user data due to privacy changes.

Signal loss is the umbrella for the decline in measurable user-data driven by post-2020 privacy changes: Apple ATT (iOS 14.5+, 2021), Safari ITP, Firefox ETP, Chrome cookie deprecation. Net effect: ~30–60% reduction in conversion-attribution accuracy across most direct-response channels since 2021. Mitigations: CAPI (Meta), Enhanced Conversions (Google), GA4 modeling, server-side tracking, MMM (media-mix modeling) for triangulation.

Example: DTC brand running Meta + Google saw measured ROAS drop from 4.2× to 2.7× post-iOS 14.5 — actual ROAS unchanged, signal loss accounted for the gap. Implementing CAPI and Enhanced Conversions recovered ~70% of the lost attribution.

See: capi, att, attribution

Site ID

Ad-tech

Network-side identifier for a specific publisher placement.

Site ID is the network's unique identifier for a publisher placement — Outbrain SectionID, Taboola SiteID, RevContent widget_id. Operators bid against site IDs in safelists / blocklists. Spy tools that publish site IDs at the creative level are giving away the auction edge — most don't, and we don't.

Example: Operator's Taboola safelist: 38 site IDs that converted at >2% CVR over 90 days. Bid 1.4× campaign default on those. The full publisher list (1,200+ IDs) ran at 0.7× default.

See: publisher, advertiser id, safelist, blocklist

SKAdNetwork (SKAN)

Tracking

Apple's privacy-preserving mobile-attribution framework.

SKAdNetwork (SKAN, in versions 1–5; SKAN 4 launched 2023) is Apple's privacy-preserving alternative to IDFA-based mobile attribution. Postbacks come from Apple, not the MMP, with a delay of 24–72 hours and a coarse 'conversion value' field (4–6 bits depending on SKAN version). Required for any iOS UA spend post-iOS 14.5. Modern MMPs (AppsFlyer, Adjust, Singular) abstract SKAN into a unified attribution dashboard.

Example: Mobile-game UA on Meta SKAN 4 sees 48-hour delayed postbacks with 6-bit conversion-value buckets — operator has to wait 2 days to see if a creative is performing, vs near-real-time on Android.

See: att, mmp, cpi

Smart Bid

Ad-tech

Taboola's auto-bidding engine.

Smart Bid is Taboola's auto-bidding system — you give it a target CPA, it predicts CTR/CVR per impression and translates your goal into auction-level CPC bids. Outbrain has the equivalent (Conversion Bid Strategy / CBS). Both work better with high event volume; under ~30 conversions/week the predictor doesn't have enough data and most operators drop back to manual CPC.

Example: Smart Bid tCPA at $40 on a fresh campaign: first 4 days actual CPA = $73 (learning phase). Stabilizes around $42 by day 9 once 30+ conversions accrue.

See: taboola, outbrain, tcpa, cbs

Smart link (router)

Ad-tech

Auto-routing affiliate URL — see also 'smartlink'.

A 'smart link' (one word or two — used interchangeably) is the same concept as 'smartlink' — a single affiliate URL that auto-routes traffic to the best-converting matching offer based on geo/device/time. The two-word form is more common in the dating and adult sub-verticals; one-word form in sweepstakes and crypto.

Example: MyLead smart-link routes Indonesian Android Chrome traffic to a sweeps-iPhone offer at $1.20 payout, while routing US iOS Safari to a $3.40 dating-DOI offer — affiliate sets one URL, network handles per-visitor logic.

See: smartlink

Smartlink

Ad-tech

Auto-routing affiliate URL that sends traffic to the best-converting offer.

A smartlink is an affiliate URL that dynamically routes each visitor to the best-converting offer for their geo/device/OS/browser/time-of-day, drawing from a pool of offers managed by the network. Used heavily on sweepstakes, dating, and crypto where one operator can't easily test all offers. Trade-off: smartlinks are usually 30–50% lower payout than direct offers because the network takes a routing fee, and you lose granular optimization control.

Example: Pop traffic operator points 12 GEOs at one MyLead smartlink instead of managing 47 individual offers — accepts a lower blended payout in exchange for not babysitting the offer-routing logic himself.

See: mylead, cpalead, crakrevenue

SOI (Single Opt-In)

Traffic & geos

Lead-gen offer paying on email submission.

SOI (single opt-in) is a lead-gen offer that pays the affiliate when the user submits their email and clicks a confirmation link once. Common in sweeps, dating, and lead-aggregation. Lower payouts than DOI but easier to convert.

Example: Sweepstakes SOI at $1.20 payout on push: 8% LP-to-form CR, $0.008 CPC → EPC $0.096. Volume kills.

See: doi, cpa, cpl

Spend pacing

Ad-tech

How a platform distributes a daily/lifetime budget across the day.

Spend pacing is how the ad platform distributes a budget across time. Standard pacing: even spend across the 24-hour window. Accelerated pacing: spend as fast as auctions clear (Google Ads default-deprecated in 2019; still available on some platforms). Lifetime budget pacing: platform spreads over the campaign's date range. Pacing matters because under-pacing means missed inventory; over-pacing means hitting the budget cap mid-day and going dark.

Example: Meta campaign with $500/day budget paces unevenly: 60% of spend lands in 9am–3pm window because that's when the audience is most active. Operator switches to dayparted bid strategy to capture more of the 3–9pm conversion window.

See: dayparting

Spy tool

Tools

Software that scrapes and indexes competitors' ad creatives.

A spy tool is software that scrapes ad creatives, landers, and (sometimes) advertiser performance signals from public ad networks — Taboola, Outbrain, MGID, push, Facebook Ad Library, TikTok Creative Center. Used for competitive intel: which creatives are running, how long, what landing pages they point to. Major paid spy tools: Anstrex, AdPlexity, AdSpy, BigSpy, PowerAdSpy. mediabuyer.site is a free / open spy alternative for native.

Example: Operator uses Anstrex to find a Taboola creative that's been running for 47 days against the same advertiser_id — a strong signal it's profitable and worth modeling.

See: advertiser id, creative, branding text

SSP (supply-side platform)

Ad-tech

Publisher-side ad-tech platform that connects inventory to demand.

An SSP (supply-side platform) is the publisher-side ad-tech platform that connects publisher ad inventory to demand-side bidders (DSPs). Major SSPs: Google AdX (now part of GAM), Magnite (Rubicon + Telaria + SpotX merged), PubMatic, Index Exchange, OpenX, Sharethrough. SSPs take a 10–30% cut of the cleared price.

Example: News publisher's revenue mix: 38% AdX, 22% Magnite, 14% PubMatic, 12% Index, 14% other — wide diversification protects against a single SSP downturn.

See: dsp, header bidding

STM (Stack That Money)

Community & forums

Long-running paid affiliate forum, declining since 2020.

STM Forum (Stack That Money) was the dominant paid affiliate community from 2011 through ~2019. $99/month, heavy on Facebook and native traffic, occasional in-person mastermind events. Lost relevance after 2020 as the ecosystem shifted to AffLIFT, private Discords, and Skype groups. Still active but smaller. Useful archives if you can find leaked or member-shared threads.

Example: STM 2018 archive thread on Outbrain conversion-bid-strategy still gets cited in AffLIFT and Discord groups — most of the principles still hold.

See: afflift, affiliatefix

Story-style ad

Creative

Personal-narrative ad that opens with a hero's discovery.

Story-style ads open with a personal narrative ('I was 47 and exhausted every afternoon until I tried...', 'My grandmother lost 30 lbs at age 71...'). The narrator may or may not be a real person, but FTC requires the testimonial be backed by genuine experience. Story-style ads outperform listicles in nutra and biz-opp on most native platforms because the narrative carries the visitor through the ad without requiring active interest.

Example: Skin-cream story-ad ('I'm 56 and my niece thought I was 35 — here's what I changed') clears $0.74 CPC on Taboola at 0.62% CTR vs 0.28% on the same offer's listicle creative.

See: advertorial, testimonial ad

Sweeps: gift card

Traffic & geos

'Win a $500 gift card' SOI sweepstakes affiliate sub-vertical.

Gift-card sweepstakes are the most common affiliate sweepstakes offer: 'enter for a chance to win a $500/$1,000 Walmart/Amazon/Visa gift card.' Pure SOI lead-gen — name + email, sometimes phone + zip. CPL $1.50–$3.50 in the US. Volumes are huge but post-lead monetization quality is low (the leads are then routed through downstream call-center or email-marketing programs that share back a fraction of the eventual payout).

Example: Walmart $500 gift-card sweeps SOI offer at $2.40 CPL runs on PropellerAds push at $0.018 CPC, clears $7.20 EPC blended on a 3-step survey-prelander pattern.

See: sweeps iphone, soi, cpl

Sweeps: iPhone / electronics

Traffic & geos

'Win the new iPhone' SOI sweepstakes affiliate sub-vertical.

iPhone (and other consumer-electronics) sweepstakes are an evergreen SOI affiliate sub-vertical, refreshed each Apple product launch. Same SOI economics as gift-card but with seasonal spike on launch dates. CPL $1.80–$3.20. Compliance is moderate — CAN-SPAM and TCPA exposure on the post-lead email/SMS programs is what regulators actually go after, not the affiliate creative.

Example: iPhone-sweepstakes SOI at $2.80 CPL spikes 4× on the day-of iPhone launch each September — operator queues 60 days of ad creative in advance to capture the spike.

See: sweeps gift card, soi, cpl

System1

Monetization

Public search-arbitrage company (NYSE: SST), parent of multiple ad-tech brands.

System1 is the public-company parent of multiple ad-tech / search-arbitrage brands (Info.com, MapQuest, Startpage). They run a publisher network similar to Tonic — they host the SERP page and pay publishers per outbound feed click. Quarterly earnings are a useful signal for the broader RSOC ecosystem.

Example: System1 Q1 2025 earnings call disclosed RSOC RPM compression of 9% YoY in the US auto vertical — every Tonic operator's Y2 dropped that quarter.

See: search arbitrage, tonic, rsoc

Taboola

Networks

The largest native ad network globally.

Taboola is the largest native-ad network by revenue, with ~$1.5B+ ARR. Their widgets appear on most premium publishers (NBC, Bloomberg, USA Today). They run two main inventory pools — content recommendations and 'Taboola Search' / RSOC. Their proprietary 'Smart Bid' engine attempts to translate a tCPA goal into auction-level CPC bids using their CTR / CVR predictor.

Example: Direct-response operator running 24 Taboola campaigns: 18 Smart Bid (tCPA $42), 6 manual CPC ($0.18). Smart Bid scales faster but burns 30% on the first 7 days while learning.

See: outbrain, mgid, native ad, smart bid, revcontent

TBoost

Tools

Tonic's bid-optimization layer for search-arbitrage campaigns.

TBoost is the optimization product Tonic built into its publisher dashboard to tune the keyword-block layout, refined-search prompts, and feed-partner selection per campaign. Operators with TBoost-enabled accounts let Tonic A/B-test feed configurations to lift Y2; the trade-off is less manual control over what the user sees on the SERP. Useful at scale, sometimes value-destructive on niche verticals where the optimizer doesn't have enough samples.

Example: Mid-tier Tonic operator turns on TBoost across 12 campaigns. RPM rises 11% on average, but two of the 12 campaigns lose 18% — the small ones the optimizer over-fits.

See: tonic, rsoc, search arbitrage

tCPA (target CPA)

Ad-tech

Bidding strategy where you set a CPA goal and the platform optimizes.

tCPA is a bid strategy where you give the ad network a target CPA and let its model bid for you. Google Ads, Meta, Taboola, and Outbrain all support it. tCPA needs ~30+ conversions per week per campaign to learn well. It will overshoot in the first 1–2 weeks; veterans set a tCPA 20–30% below their true breakeven to absorb that.

Example: Breakeven CPA $48. Operator sets tCPA $36 to leave 25% buffer. After two weeks of stabilization the campaign clears CPA $39 blended — close enough.

See: smart bid, cpa, roas, cbs

TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act)

Compliance & regulatory

US federal law restricting telemarketing, autodial, and SMS without consent.

TCPA (47 USC § 227, 47 CFR Part 64) is the US federal law restricting unsolicited telemarketing calls, autodialed calls, prerecorded messages, and SMS without prior express consent. Statutory damages are $500–$1,500 per violation (per call/text), often aggregated into class actions in the seven-figure range. TCPA-exposed verticals: insurance, debt-relief, mortgage, solar, home-services. Modern affiliate compliance: single-line consent disclosures, one-to-one consent (post-2024 FCC update), and TCPA-compliant lead-list scrubbing.

Example: Auto-insurance lead-gen affiliate updates the form prelander in February 2024 to comply with the FCC's 'one-to-one consent' rule — drops 14% of inbound leads as non-consenting, but eliminates $2M in potential class-action TCPA exposure.

See: tcpa, compliance, lead quality

Testimonial ad

Creative

Customer-testimonial-led ad copy or video.

A testimonial ad leads with a real-customer quote or video review. FTC's 'Endorsement Guides' (16 CFR Part 255) require testimonials to reflect typical results, with a clear disclosure if results vary. Networks (Taboola, Outbrain, Meta, Google) all enforce this — ads with cherry-picked '$50,000 in 30 days' testimonials get rejected; ads with verified-customer-language and a disclosure pass.

Example: Joint-supplement testimonial ad: '"I was skeptical but my hip pain stopped within 3 weeks" — Linda, 64, Phoenix' with substantiation on file at the advertiser. Clears Outbrain compliance review on first submission.

See: advertorial, ftc, story style

ThriveTracker

Tracking

Self-hosted/cloud affiliate tracker, owned by Thrive Themes.

ThriveTracker is a paid affiliate tracker built for media buyers, sold by Thrive Themes. Cloud and self-hosted options. Mid-tier feature set (multi-step funnels, dynamic redirects, CPM/CPC support, basic anti-fraud). Smaller user base than Voluum or RedTrack. Pricing ~$99/month for cloud, $499 one-time for self-hosted.

Example: Push-traffic affiliate uses ThriveTracker self-hosted to keep tracking costs flat — pays once, runs unlimited campaigns, sacrifices the latest postback features Voluum gets first.

See: voluum, redtrack, binom

Thumbnail

Creative

The image asset of a native ad creative.

Thumbnail (or 'image' or 'asset') is the visual element of a native creative. Platforms recommend 1200×800px+, JPG or PNG, no text overlay (Meta-style limits don't apply on native, but Taboola enforces 'no logos covering more than 20% of image'). The number one variable for CTR.

Example: Identical headline tested with 14 thumbnails: stock-photo angles ranged 0.2–0.5% CTR; UGC-shot phone-camera images hit 1.1–1.4%.

See: creative, title

Tier 4 (sub-tier markets)

Traffic & geos

Operator slang for the cheapest, lowest-monetization geos.

'Tier 4' is operator slang (not a formal IAB classification) for the lowest-monetization markets — sub-Saharan Africa, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Cambodia, Laos, parts of Central Asia. CPCs can be $0.001–$0.005 on pop traffic. Useful for testing creatives cheaply but rarely a profit center on its own. Some sweepstakes and SOI dating offers do clear here at scale.

Example: Operator launches every new pop creative in 'Tier 4' (Bangladesh + Pakistan + Indonesia) for $20 each first to find winners before scaling to tier-1.

See: tier 1, tier 2, tier 3

Tier-1 (T1) traffic

Traffic & geos

High-CPM English-speaking markets — US, UK, CA, AU, NZ, IE.

Tier-1 is the affiliate-marketing convention for high-spend, high-CPM English-speaking markets — US, UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland. Native CPCs are highest here, conversion volumes are richest, and most cash-paying offers target T1 only. Tier-2 = mid-CPM (Western EU, JP, KR, IL); Tier-3 = low-CPM (LATAM, SEA, MENA, EE).

Example: Same supplement offer at $89 AOV: T1 cleared $0.34 CPC and $48 CPA. T2 (DE/FR/IT) cleared $0.12 CPC and $19 CPA — 3× better unit economics, 1/4 the volume.

See: tier 2, tier 3

Tier-2 (T2) traffic

Traffic & geos

Mid-CPM markets — Western EU, JP, KR, IL.

Tier-2 is the mid-CPM tier in affiliate-marketing convention — Western EU (DE, FR, IT, ES, NL), Japan, Korea, Israel, sometimes Singapore. Lower CPCs than T1, but offer volume is real and CVRs can be higher (less competition). Many big nutra and finance operators run T2 specifically to escape T1 ad-network compliance pressure.

Example: DE/FR weight-loss campaign at $0.09 CPC, 3.2% CVR, €38 AOV — total spend €4k/day, ROAS 2.1×. Same creative unprofitable in the US.

See: tier 1, tier 3

Tier-3 (T3) traffic

Traffic & geos

Low-CPM markets — LATAM, SEA, MENA, Eastern EU.

Tier-3 is the low-CPM affiliate tier — LATAM (BR, MX, CL, AR), SEA (TH, VN, ID, PH, MY), MENA (MA, EG, SA, AE), Eastern EU. CPCs can be 5–10× cheaper than T1. Best fit: SOI/DOI lead-gen, sweepstakes, mobile installs, low-AOV e-com. Hardest part is fulfillment / payments / refunds in mixed-currency markets.

Example: Sweepstakes campaign in BR/MX/CL on push at $0.003 CPC — 9% lead CR, $0.80 SOI payout, $0.072 EPC. Volume-driven model: profitable at 80M clicks/month.

See: tier 1, tier 2

TikTok Ads Policy

Compliance & regulatory

TikTok's advertising-policy framework — strict on health, finance, and political content.

TikTok Ads Policy (ads.tiktok.com/help/article/community-guidelines-and-advertising-policies) governs what's allowed on TikTok Ads Manager. Restricted: health products (no medical claims, no body-shaming, regulated CBD), finance (licensed-only), political content (largely banned). Banned globally: tobacco, certain weight-loss imagery, cryptocurrency in most geos. Manual review of every ad for the first 24h after submission; rejection rate notably higher than Meta on borderline creatives.

Example: DTC supplement brand submits 8 TikTok-style UGC ads — 5 are rejected on first review for 'unrealistic health claim' even though the script is identical to a Meta-approved version. Operator rewrites with TikTok-specific copy patterns.

See: facebook policy, ugc ad

Time-decay attribution

Tracking

Attribution model weighted toward touchpoints closer to conversion.

Time-decay attribution gives more credit to touchpoints that happened closer in time to the conversion, with credit decaying exponentially backward. Common half-life: 7 days. Reasonable middle-ground between last-click and linear. Most platforms (Google Analytics, GA4, Adobe Analytics) implement a time-decay option. Useful when last-click feels too sales-promotion-credit and linear feels too generous to top-of-funnel.

Example: Auto-insurance lead-gen campaign uses 7-day half-life time-decay: search ad two days before form-submit gets 60% credit, native ad five days before gets 24%, display impression nine days back gets 8%.

See: attribution, linear attribution, first click

Title (headline)

Creative

The text headline of a native ad creative.

Title (or headline) is the short text that runs under the thumbnail in a native widget. Platforms cap at ~80 chars but the actual rendered length depends on the placement. Highest-performing patterns: curiosity gaps, specific numbers, named celebrities, before/after framing. Avoid: generic adjectives, all-caps, exclamation marks (auto-rejected by some compliance teams).

Example: 'Doctors stunned: this $19 trick may help with knee pain' beat 'Knee pain remedy that works' 4:1 on CTR — same offer, same image.

See: thumbnail, creative, ctr

Tonic

Monetization

A search-arbitrage monetization platform (formerly tonic.com).

Tonic is one of the two dominant search-arbitrage monetization platforms (the other being System1). It signs publishers, hosts the search-feed page, manages compliance with Yahoo/Google/Bing, and pays out a share of the downstream SERP click revenue. Most large native-arbitrage operations run on Tonic, System1, or both for redundancy. Payouts net 60–90 days.

Example: Operator runs three Tonic campaigns: insurance ($0.34 RPCick), home-services ($0.27), recipes ($0.09). The recipe one is dropped after two weeks for not clearing Y2.

See: search arbitrage, rsoc, system1, tboost

Tracker

Tracking

The system that attributes ad clicks to conversions.

A tracker is the technical layer that ties ad-network clicks to downstream conversions. Functions: assign a unique click ID, redirect to the offer with that ID baked in, accept a server-side postback or pixel fire on conversion, attribute back to source/campaign/creative/landing page, and report. Self-hosted (Binom, FunnelFlux) vs cloud (Voluum, BeMob, RedTrack, ClickFlare). Most beginners over-buy.

Example: Click → tracker URL with {click_id} → offer URL with click_id appended → conversion fires → tracker postback notified → attributed back to creative #34 on Taboola campaign 1812.

See: voluum, bemob, redtrack, postback, binom

TrafficJunky

Networks

MindGeek-owned adult ad network — tube-site inventory.

TrafficJunky is the ad network owned by Aylo (formerly MindGeek), the operator of Pornhub, RedTube, YouPorn, and other major tube sites. The largest single source of adult traffic globally. CPM-bid auction, 24h ad approval, supports geo-targeting at the city level. Compliance is strict for adult — no underage-suggestive imagery, no explicit dating come-ons, and US states with age-verification laws (Texas, Louisiana, Utah) require additional compliance.

Example: Adult-dating offer runs $1,000/day on TrafficJunky targeting French-Canadian tube users — banner CTR 0.4%, prelander→offer CVR 6%, blended CPA $14 vs $19 payout.

See: exoclick, cpm

TUNE (HasOffers)

Tracking

Affiliate network platform — formerly HasOffers, now TUNE.

TUNE (formerly HasOffers) is one of the two leading SaaS platforms for running an affiliate network — the other being Everflow. Most mid-size affiliate networks (Click Dealer, Adcombo, Mobidea) run on TUNE or a TUNE fork. Offers postback, pixel, server-to-server tracking, conversion-cap rules, fraud-detection plugins. Pricing starts ~$2K/month for a managed network instance.

Example: Mid-size CPA network with 1,200 affiliates and 4,000 offers runs on TUNE — every offer URL has a `?aff_id=&offer_id=&aff_sub=` pattern recognizable as TUNE-stack.

See: everflow, tracker, postback

UGC ad

Creative

User-generated-content-style ad: phone-shot video by a creator.

UGC (user-generated content) ads are vertical phone-shot videos by a hired creator that mimic organic TikTok/Instagram reels. Massively outperform polished studio ads on Meta and TikTok in 2024–2026 across most direct-response verticals. Cost per UGC asset $150–$1,500 from creator marketplaces (Billo, Insense, Trend.io). FTC requires #ad disclosure if it's a paid creator.

Example: DTC supplement brand runs 12 UGC variants from Billo at $260 each, top-3 winners clear $32 CPA on Meta vs $48 on the brand's prior studio creatives — net positive after creator-marketplace cost.

See: creative, carousel ad, ftc

Vertical

Ad-tech

Industry / category an offer or campaign belongs to.

Vertical is the affiliate-marketing word for category / industry — e.g. nutra, finance, dating, sweeps, e-com, mobile, gambling, insurance, health-supplements. Each vertical has its own offer dynamics, compliance thresholds, payout norms, and traffic-source fit. Top-of-table verticals in 2026 by spend: insurance, mortgage, education, supplements, mobile-installs, sweepstakes.

Example: Operator runs three verticals: nutra ($0.34 CPC, $54 AOV, 1.8% LP CVR), insurance ($0.42 CPC, $32 CPL, 4% LP CVR), mortgage ($0.71 CPC, $80 CPL, 1.1% CVR).

See: maxbounty, clickbank, tier 1

Video ad

Creative

An ad unit using video instead of a static image.

Video ads on native networks autoplay muted, with a play-icon overlay. They typically 2–4× the CTR of equivalent static creatives but cost 30–50% more in CPC (the platform values them higher in the auction). Best practice: 6–15 second clips with caption-burned subtitles, since most viewers see them muted.

Example: 10-second before/after video on Taboola: 1.42% CTR vs 0.51% on the still-image equivalent. CPC up 38%, net effective CPM up 95%.

See: creative, ctr

View rate

Metrics

Percentage of impressions that resulted in a viewable or completed view.

View rate measures how often an ad impression turned into a 'view' under whatever definition the platform uses. YouTube TrueView: viewer watched 30+ seconds or to-the-end. Programmatic display: 50% of pixels in-view for ≥1 second (MRC standard). Native: viewer scrolled past the ad. Always check the platform's view definition — it changes per channel and is not comparable across them.

Example: YouTube TrueView campaign: 1.2M impressions, 312K views (26% view rate), $0.04 average CPV, blended CPM $11.20 — campaign optimized to view rate, not CPC.

See: cpv, cpm, ctr

View-through conversion

Metrics

Conversion attributed to an ad-impression that was not clicked.

A view-through conversion (VTC) credits an ad with a conversion when the user saw the impression but didn't click it, then converted within an attribution window (usually 1 day for display, 7 for video). VTCs are over-credited by most platforms, especially in retargeting where the user was going to convert anyway. Operators discount VTCs 50–80% when they appear in a campaign's reported ROAS.

Example: Display retargeting campaign reports 320 click-conversions and 1,840 view-through conversions in a 7-day window — operator counts the VTCs at 30% weight ($552 effective conversions) for true ROAS calculation.

See: attribution, last click

Viewability

Metrics

Percentage of impressions that met MRC's 'in-view' standard.

Viewability is the percentage of served impressions that met the MRC viewability standard: 50% of pixels in-view for at least 1 second (display) or 2 seconds (video). Below 70% viewability is poor; tier-1 publisher inventory clears 75–90%. Programmatic buyers contract minimum viewability thresholds (e.g., '85%+ measured-viewable') to filter out low-quality placements at the bid layer.

Example: Programmatic display campaign reports 92% measured viewability across tier-1 publishers but 41% on a long-tail site that auto-refreshes ad slots every 15 seconds — operator adds the long-tail site to a blocklist.

See: ivt, brand safety, cpm

Voluum

Tools

Cloud-based tracker for affiliate marketers.

Voluum is one of the most-used affiliate trackers. It sits between the ad network and the offer, attributes clicks/conversions back to source/campaign/creative, and feeds rule-based traffic distribution (RBTD). Pricing starts ~$199/mo. Strong reporting, native postback support, integrations with most networks.

Example: Operator runs 90 campaigns through Voluum: clicks tagged with click ID, redirected to the offer, postback fires on conversion. Voluum's RBTD then routes future clicks to the best-performing lander automatically.

See: bemob, redtrack, tracker, clickflare

VPN affiliate offers

Traffic & geos

Consumer-VPN affiliate vertical — NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN.

VPN is one of the highest-paying consumer-software affiliate verticals: NordVPN ($60–$110 per sale on a 2-year plan), Surfshark, ExpressVPN, ProtonVPN, Mullvad. Massive review-site SEO ecosystem. Native ads and YouTube sponsorships are also major channels. Payouts include first-payment commission (40–100%) plus rebill share. Heavy 'best VPN of 2026' SEO competition.

Example: NordVPN affiliate runs a 'best VPN for streaming' YouTube channel — 35K subs, 18% click-through to affiliate URLs, 4% to-checkout — clears ~$8K/month in net commissions.

See: antivirus

VSL (Video Sales Letter)

Creative

A long-form video ad acting as the sales pitch.

VSL (video sales letter) is a 10–45 minute video that walks the viewer through problem → mechanism → product → CTA. Heavy in info-product / ClickBank funnels, weight-loss, supplements. Replaces a long-form sales page. Operators frame VSLs with a controlled-reveal structure (no buy button until minute 18) to maximize watch-through. Mostly out of fashion in 2026 but still working in health and finance.

Example: $2,400-CAC pension-product VSL: 38 minutes long, average watch-time 21 minutes, 1.6% click-to-buy from the in-video CTA.

See: advertorial, prelander, lp

VSL funnel

Creative

Video-sales-letter prelander → checkout funnel — popular in nutra and biz-opp.

A VSL (video sales letter) funnel is a long-form video pitch (8–20 minutes, sometimes 30+) that walks the visitor through a problem story, a discovery moment, and a sales pitch. Closes by surfacing a checkout button at the climax. Dominant in biz-opp and nutra. CVR on a well-tuned VSL funnel can be 3–8% versus 1–2% on a static page. Trade-off: high production cost per VSL ($2K–$15K with talent) and very high creative-fatigue rate.

Example: Biz-opp VSL funnel at 14-minute runtime converts 4.2% on Outbrain US over 90 days, then drops to 1.8% as the same audience pool sees the VSL repeatedly — operator commissions a fresh VSL with a different presenter.

See: vsl, advertorial, creative

Winning creative

Creative

An ad that demonstrably outperforms its sister creatives on CTR or CVR.

A 'winning creative' (or 'winner') is an ad that's beaten the rest of the rotation pool on CTR, CVR, or downstream EPC by enough margin to justify allocating more budget to it. Common test: 1,000 ad impressions per creative (or 50–100 clicks for CVR-based testing), 2σ winner picked. Winning creatives are then split into variants ('iteration') to find the next round of winners.

Example: Operator tests 12 ad-creative concepts at $50 each over 7 days; 2 are clear winners on CTR (above 0.55% vs the median 0.31%), 1 is a CVR winner. Operator scales the CVR winner and iterates the CTR winners into 6 next-round variants.

See: creative, ctr, cvr

Y2 (search-arbitrage spread)

Metrics

The day-2 retention of revenue after traffic cost — search-arb gross margin.

'Y2' is search-arb operator slang for the gross margin per session after netting traffic acquisition cost. A 30% Y2 means $1 in revenue produced $0.30 of operator margin after the native ad bill. Y2 is the number search-arb operators look at first thing every morning — it's the equivalent of CAC payback in subscription land.

Example: Yesterday: $11,400 spend, $14,920 RSOC payout. Y2 = 31%. The operator pulls the worst three campaigns dragging Y2 below 25% blended.

See: search arbitrage, rpm, rsoc

Yahoo Gemini (legacy)

Networks

Yahoo's discontinued native+search ad platform — folded into Verizon Media in 2019.

Yahoo Gemini was Yahoo's combined native and search ad platform from 2014 until it was folded into Verizon Media (now Yahoo Native, part of Yahoo DSP) in 2019. The brand is dead but operator forums still reference 'Gemini campaigns' for the legacy account types and the playbooks (high-CTR thumbnail tactics, the 'gemini squeeze' creative pattern). Modern equivalent: Yahoo DSP for native, Yahoo Search Partner Network for syndicated SERP monetization.

Example: An old AffLIFT thread titled 'best Gemini bid strategy' from 2018 is still cited verbatim in 2026 by operators running Yahoo DSP — the underlying auction mechanics changed less than the brand name.

See: yahoo search partner, taboola, outbrain

Yahoo Search Partner Network

Monetization

Yahoo's syndicated search-results monetization for publishers.

Yahoo Search Partner Network (YSPN, sometimes 'Yahoo SSP') is Yahoo's equivalent of Google AdSense for Search — publishers integrate a Yahoo-powered SERP, users get monetizable search ads, and Yahoo shares revenue. Used heavily by RSOC arbitragers who got banned from AdSense or want a second monetization channel. Generally lower RPM than Google RSOC but with looser content policies. Account manager-driven, not self-serve.

Example: Operator banned from AdSense moves the whole RSOC funnel to Yahoo SSP. RPM drops 30% but the account is no longer one strike from death.

See: rsoc, search arbitrage, system1, tonic

Zeropark

Networks

Codewise-owned pop and push ad network — Voluum integration.

Zeropark is a pop/push/redirect ad network owned by Codewise (the makers of Voluum). Self-serve dashboard, deeply integrated with Voluum tracker — campaign optimization rules and conversion data sync natively. RON, geo-targeted, and keyword-targeted (a niche feature where ads are matched to URL-keyword categories) inventory. $200 minimum deposit, CPV/CPC bidding.

Example: Voluum operator running Zeropark uses the native Voluum→Zeropark sync to auto-pause sources below $0.30 EPC after 200 visitors — saves 4 hours of manual optimization per week.

See: voluum, popunder, redirect