Affiliate marketing glossary
Attribution
In one sentence
Attribution is the process of determining which marketing touchpoint receives credit for a conversion, and therefore which affiliate is paid.
In affiliate marketing, attribution is decided by the network's tracking, the advertiser's chosen model, and the cookie window. Disputes over attribution are the most common source of friction between publishers and advertisers.
Cross-device attribution, matching a click on a phone to a purchase on a laptop, requires the advertiser to support user-level matching. Programs that do not support it will under-report creator performance, because social traffic is overwhelmingly mobile while high-value purchases often complete on desktop.
Common questions
Attribution, answered
Why does a sale not show in my reporting?
Four common reasons: the purchase happened after the cookie window closed, another affiliate link was clicked in between, the customer switched device and the advertiser does not support cross-device matching, or the conversion has not been reported yet. Advertiser reporting lags, so a sale can appear days after it happened.
Can I dispute an attribution decision?
You can raise it, and it is worth doing when a pattern rather than a single sale looks wrong. What you cannot usually do is prove the counterfactual, because the tracking record is the advertiser's. The productive version of the conversation is about a systematic issue, such as a broken tag or a program that stopped honouring its stated window.
Does attribution differ between networks?
The model is set by the advertiser, but the tracking is the network's, and implementations differ in how they handle device switches, in-app browsers and blocked cookies. Two networks running the same advertiser can report materially different numbers for the same traffic.
Keep reading
More from the glossary
Every term here is written to answer one question completely, then point at the next one worth asking.
Sub-affiliate network
A sub-affiliate network is a company that holds approved relationships with affiliate programs on major networks and lets smaller publishers and creators promote those programs under its account, sharing the commission it receives.
Affiliate network
An affiliate network is a platform that connects advertisers running affiliate programs with publishers who promote them, handling tracking, reporting and payment between the two.
EPC (earnings per click)
EPC is the average commission earned per click sent to an advertiser, calculated as total commission divided by total clicks over a given period.
Deep link
A deep link is a tracked affiliate link that points to a specific product or category page on an advertiser's site rather than to its homepage.
Sub-ID
A sub-ID is a custom parameter appended to an affiliate link that lets a partner segment their reporting by campaign, platform, post or placement.
Commission
Commission is the amount an advertiser pays an affiliate for a qualifying action, expressed either as a percentage of order value or as a flat amount per action.
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