Dating Affiliate Glossary: Key Terms Explained Simply

Sorted by theme, from the most general to the most technical. To start in order, follow the step-by-step guide instead.

The basics

Affiliate marketing: A partnership in which a company pays a publisher for each customer they bring in. The publisher sells nothing themselves: they recommend. Affiliate marketing explained.
Advertiser: The company that sells the service and pays the commissions. In dating, these are the sites and apps that offer subscriptions.
Publisher or affiliate: The person who presents offers to their audience: a site, a blog, a social network page or an ad campaign.
Affiliate platform: The intermediary between advertisers and publishers: it provides the links, counts signups and pays commissions. Prelinker is one, specialized in dating. How to choose a platform.
Affiliate program: The set of terms offered: available offers, rates, promotion rules, payment methods. Reading a program before signing up.
Niche: A specific audience and what it is looking for: senior, local or community dating. A niche close to your audience converts better than the whole catalog. Choosing your niche.
Referral: Recommending the platform itself to other publishers. The referrer may receive a commission paid by the platform, at no cost to the person referred.

Commission: The sum the publisher receives for an action brought in: signup, subscription or renewal.
CPA: Cost per action: a fixed amount paid for each specific action, most often a purchase or a subscription. CPA, CPL or revshare?
CPL: Cost per lead: an amount paid for each signup, without waiting for the person to pay.
Lead: A visitor who creates an account or leaves their contact details. It is the step before the subscription.
Revshare: Revenue share: a percentage of what the customer pays, paid out at each payment as long as they stay subscribed.
Recurring revenue: A commission that comes back at each subscription renewal, with no new work on your part. Commission at Prelinker.
Conversion rate: The share of visitors who take action. One hundred clicks and two signups give a rate of 2%.
EPC: Earnings per click: commissions divided by the number of clicks. The right indicator for comparing two offers or two pages.
Reporting your income: Affiliate commissions are taxable. Under a micro-enterprise regime, they count as business receipts. Reporting your income.

Affiliate link: A personal address that identifies you: every signup made through this link is credited to you. Using your link well.
Smartlink: A single link that sends each visitor to the most suitable offer based on their country, device and language. The smartlink in detail.
Widget: A ready-to-place block for a page, such as a banner or profile thumbnails, with a simple code to copy. Prelinker widgets.
Profile feed: A list of profiles supplied by the platform, which you display in your site's layout. The profile feed.
White label: A complete dating site under your name: the platform manages members, payments and moderation. Prelinker white label.
Landing page: The page the visitor lands on after a click, designed for a single action: signing up.

Tracking: The mechanism that ties a signup to the link of the publisher who brought it. Without tracking, no commission.
Cookie: A small file saved by the browser at the moment of the click. It lets the signup be credited to you even if it happens a little later.
SubID: A label added to your link to know which page, video or campaign brought each signup. SubID and postback.
Postback: A message sent automatically by the platform to your tracking tool as soon as a conversion takes place. Essential for running a paid campaign.

Traffic: The visitors to your site or page. In affiliate marketing, everything starts there: no visitors, no commission.
Organic search (SEO): Being found on Google without paying for each click, thanks to useful, well-built content. SEO for a dating site.
Paid traffic: Visits bought through advertising. It is profitable only if the EPC exceeds the price paid for each click.
Forced traffic: Visits obtained by coercion or in exchange for a reward. Platforms refuse it: it does not convert and puts the account at risk.