Glossary

Below are common words and terms used by GeoRiot and affiliate marketing. If you come across a word or phrase that is not defined below please contact us.

Active Click Sharing

Active click sharing is the process of replacing a client's affiliate tracking parameters with GeoRiot's for a small percent of clicks. Active Click Share happens for clicks from countries with an affiliate program that are supported by the client. Active click sharing is only utillized after passive click sharing is unable to meet the contractual click share rate.

Advertiser

The company that is actually selling something, who through an Affiliate Network, rewards Publishers and App Developers with commissions for sales they referred in their stores. Eg. iTunes, The App Store.

Affiliate Link

A specialized link that includes certain tracking parameters so that a publisher can be credited for sales from traffic that they refer to the advertiser.

Affiliate Network

The company that creates and manages the affiliate tracking links, connects the Publishers and Advertisers, and writes the final check to the Publisher. Eg. Linkshare, Tradedoubler, DGM.

Affiliate Program

Usually administered by an Affiliate Network, an Affiliate Program is a relationship between an Advertiser and Publisher where the Advertiser rewards the Publisher for sales generated by traffic sent from the Publisher's site (or app).

Click Share

Click sharing is the seamless process of rerouting the click of an affiliate link with a different set of tracking parameters. GeoRiot uses click sharing as a way to recoup the costs associates with offering the affiliate geo-targeting, translation, and encoding service. There are two types of click sharing; active and passive.

Deep Link

A link built to a specific item. Typically encoded to be made into an affiliated deep link, this type of link usually results in higher conversions as it leads the end user to the specific content they were originally looking for.

DGM Pro

(Deal Group Media) The Affiliate Network that administers the iTunes Affiliate Program for Australia and New Zealand.

Encoding

The process of transforming a raw URL into an affiliate URL by attaching the relevant affiliate parameters to the end with the correct characters (question mark or ampersand).

Geo-targeting

The practice of changing a link based on the clicker's IP address in order for the link to go to a relevant destination.

iTunes Affiliate Program

(a.k.a. "App Store Affiliate Program," "iTunes / App Store Affiliate Program," "iTunes, App Store, iBookstore, and Mac App Store Affiliate Program")
Actually a misnomer, there are 45 separate afiliate programs, administered by four different affiliate networks around the world. These affiliate programs reward publishers four to five percent of sales, over a 72 hour window for sales of music, apps, TV shows, movies, audiobooks and podcasts sold in a combination of the iTunes Store, iOS App Store, iBookstore, and Mac App Store.

LinkShare

The Affiliate Network that administers the iTunes Affiliate Program in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Link Maker tool

A tool, provided by Apple, that given a search term returns affiliated links for iTunes and the App Store. This tool is accessible though the four different affiliate networks. A public version of the tool is also available but does not provide affiliate results.

Passive Click Sharing

Passive click sharing is the process of affiliate encoding clicks from a client's unsupported countries, that have an affiliate program, with GeoRiot's affiliate tracking parameters.

Publisher

The creator or manager of a site or service that uses, among other things, affiliate links as a revenue source. Eg. You.

TradeDoubler

The Affiliate Network that administers iTunes Affiliate Programs in 29 countries in Europe and 10 countries in Latin America. For more information see iTunes Countries.

Traffic Source

A traffic source can be anything generating clicking traffic from an affiliate link. For example, it could be an app in the App Store, an app discovery website, a campaign, a tweet, or even a Facebook post.

Translating

The process of transforming a link destined for one store or country to point to the same item (or relevant content if the specific item is unavailable) in a new store or country.

URL

(Uniform Resource Locator) Also known as a URI (Uniform Resource Indicator), is the "address" to a page on a web site on the Internet. URLs also have the ability to pass information as parameters. Passing specific information about an affiliate program as parameters in a URL effectively turns it into an affiliate link.