CPA GLOSSARY
KNOWLEDGE
A comprehensive database of terms, concepts and technical nuances essential for succeeding in the CPA industry. Your roadmap to speaking the same language as the market.
Participants & Core concepts
Affiliate
A marketer who promotes products or services in exchange for a commission.
Advertiser (Merchant)
The product owner or service provider who pays for specific actions.
Affiliate network (CPA Network)
A platform acting as an intermediary between advertisers and affiliates.
Offer
A specific product or service available for promotion with a set payout.
Publisher
An owner of an advertising space or traffic source.
Affiliate manager
A network employee who assists affiliates with offer selection and setup.
Vertical
A specific industry category (e.g., E-commerce, Finance, Gambling).
Niche
A narrower segment within a vertical.
Target audience (TA)
The specific group of people the offer is intended for.
Traffic source
The platform where an affiliate buys or generates visitors (e.g., Facebook, Google).
Payout models
CPA (Cost Per Action)
Payment for a specific action (e.g., purchase).
CPL (Cost Per Lead)
Payment for a registration or completed form.
CPS (Cost Per Sale)
Payment for a completed transaction.
CPI (Cost Per Install)
Payment for a mobile app installation.
CPC (Cost Per Click)
Payment for each click on an ad.
CPM (Cost Per Mille)
Payment for every 1,000 ad impressions.
RevShare (Revenue Share)
A percentage of the revenue generated by a customer over their lifetime.
COD (Cash on Delivery)
Payment made when the customer receives the physical product.
DOI (Double Opt-In)
A lead that requires the user to confirm their email address.
SOI (Single Opt-In)
A lead that requires only a registration without email confirmation.
Metrics & Analytics
CTR (Click-Through Rate)
The ratio of clicks to impressions.
CR (Conversion Rate)
The percentage of visitors who complete a desired action.
ROI (Return on Investment)
A measure of the profitability of an ad campaign.
EPC (Earnings Per Click)
The average amount of money earned for every click sent.
EPM (Earnings Per Mille)
Average earnings per 1,000 impressions.
AR (Approval Rate)
The percentage of leads/actions approved by the advertiser.
KPI (Key Performance Indicators)
Performance metrics set by the advertiser to evaluate traffic quality.
LTV (Lifetime Value)
The total net profit attributed to the entire future relationship with a customer.
Hold
The period during which funds are frozen while the advertiser verifies traffic quality.
Lead
A potential customer who has provided contact information.
Trash
Invalid leads (e.g., wrong phone numbers, duplicates).
Rejection
Leads that were declined by the advertiser for not meeting requirements.
Postback
A mechanism for reporting conversions from the network to the affiliate's tracker.
S2S (Server-to-Server)
Tracking conversions via server requests rather than browser cookies.
Pixel
A snippet of code used to track user behavior and conversions on a website.
Traffic sources & Types
Traffic
The flow of users visiting a landing page or offer.
Organic traffic
Unpaid traffic coming from search engine results.
Paid traffic
Traffic purchased through advertising platforms.
Social traffic
Visitors coming from social media platforms.
Search traffic
Traffic from search engines (SEO or SEM).
Native Ads
Advertisements that match the look and feel of the media format where they appear.
Push notifications
Clickable messages that appear on a user's browser or mobile device.
Pop-under/Pop-up
Ads that open in a new browser window behind or in front of the current page.
In-app
Advertising displayed within mobile applications.
Teaser Ads
High-curiosity ads designed to entice users to click.
Adult traffic
Traffic originating from 18+ websites.
Motivated (Incent) Traffic
Traffic where users are rewarded for completing an action (often prohibited).
Fraud
Fake traffic generated by bots or malicious software.
Spam
Unsolicited bulk messages used to promote offers.
Redirect
Automatically sending a user from one URL to another.
Tools & Technical terms
Affiliate Link
A unique URL containing the affiliate's ID to track their sales.
Tracker
Software used to monitor, analyze, and optimize ad campaigns.
Landing Page (Lander)
The web page a user lands on after clicking an ad.
Pre-landing page (Pre-lander)
An intermediate page used to "warm up" the audience before the offer.
Creatives
Ad materials like banners, videos, or headlines.
Sub ID
A parameter added to an affiliate link to track specific variables (e.g., which banner worked).
Cloaking
Showing different content to ad platform moderators and real users.
Safe page
The compliant page shown to moderators during cloaking.
Money page
The actual offer page shown to real users.
Domain
The unique address of a website.
Hosting
The service that stores and serves your website files.
SSL Certificate
A security protocol (HTTPS) that encrypts data between the server and browser.
API (Application Programming Interface)
A set of rules allowing different software to communicate.
Cookies
Small files stored in a user's browser to track their journey and credit the affiliate.
Cookie stuffing
A fraudulent technique of placing cookies on a user's computer without their knowledge.
Postback URL
The URL used by a tracker to receive conversion data.
User agent
Information about the user's browser, operating system, and device.
IP Address
A unique numerical label assigned to each device on a network.
Proxy
An intermediary server used to hide a user's real IP address.
Antidetect browser
A tool that allows managing multiple accounts by spoofing browser fingerprints.
Workflow & Industry slang
Campaign (Flow)
The entire setup of an ad campaign from source to offer.
Scaling
Increasing the budget or reach of a profitable campaign to maximize earnings.
Testing
Running small amounts of traffic to see if an offer or creative converts.
Burning
When a creative or audience stops being effective due to overexposure.
Optimization
The process of removing underperforming elements of a campaign.
Whitelist
A list of high-performing placements or sites to focus on.
Blacklist
A list of poor-performing placements to be excluded from a campaign.
Account farming
The process of preparing social media accounts for high-spend advertising.
Self-service platform
An ad network where users set up and manage campaigns themselves.
Manual approval
When an advertiser manually reviews each lead before paying.
Auto-approval
Conversions that are approved instantly by the system.
Smartlink
A single link that uses algorithms to automatically direct users to the best-performing offer.
Direct advertiser
Working directly with the brand, bypassing the affiliate network.
Reselling
When a network lists an offer from another network.
Bump
An increase in the payout rate granted to a specific affiliate.
Cap
A limit on the number of conversions an affiliate can send in a given period.
Daily cap
The maximum number of leads allowed per day.
Private offer
An offer not visible to the general public, available only to trusted affiliates.
Payout
The amount of money earned for a single conversion.
Scrubbing
When an advertiser unfairly rejects valid leads to avoid payment.
Finance & Payments
Minimum payout
The lowest amount of earnings required to request a withdrawal.
Payment method
The gateway used to pay affiliates (e.g., Wire, Crypto, PayPal).
Referral
An affiliate who joins a network via another affiliate's recommendation.
Referral program
A system that pays a commission for bringing new affiliates to the platform.
Balance
The total amount of unpaid earnings in an affiliate's account.
Invoice
A document detailing the services provided and the amount due for payment.
Gross profit
Total revenue before subtracting advertising costs.
Net profit
Revenue minus all expenses (ad spend, tools, etc.).
Marketplace
The area in a network where all available offers are listed.
Affiliate summit
Large industry conferences where professionals network and share knowledge.
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