Affiliate Marketing Glossary
Amazon Item An item that is sold and fulfilled by Amazon, not by one of our third-party merchants. ASIN Short for “Amazon.com Standard Item Number.” Every item in our catalog has a unique 10-digit ASIN. You can find items’ ASINs on their product pages under Product Details, along with other information like sales rank and release date. Although Books’ ASINs used to be the same as their ISBNs, this is no longer guaranteed because of the introduction of 13-digit ISBNs. See the ISBN-13 FAQ for more information.
Associates Central This Web site. Associates Central offers you a multitude of services, including report- and link-generation tools, a graphics library, and marketing tips.
Associates ID An automatically generated, unique ID that is used to identify your Associates account.
CE Consumer Electronics – electronic equipment intended for everyday use.Clicks The number of clicks visitors have made on your Associates links.
Click-through Rate The number of clicks on your links divided by the number of impressions, expressed as a percentage. For example, if your links got 50 clicks for 1000 impressions, your click-through rate would be 50/1000 = 0.05, or 5%. Click-through rate can be used to judge how effective an Amazon link is at generating traffic.
Conversion The number of items shipped divided by the number of clicks on your links, expressed as a percentage. For example, if your links got 200 clicks and those referrals generated 18 shipped items, your conversion would be 18/200=0.09, or 9%.
CSV (Comma Separated Values) A tabular data format in which you can download your reports. In reports downloads from Associates Central, the various values are separated by tabs, not commas, in the resulting text file. See also: TSV (Tab Separated Values).
Earnings Referral fees earned on completed sales, including premiums. Earnings Reports Reports that show how much you have earned in referral fees over a given period of time. Figures are based on items paid for and shipped.
Earnings Summary A quarter-to-date total of items shipped, completed sales, and earnings. Figures are based on items paid for and shipped.
Effective Referral Fee Rate Your base referral fee rate plus the effect of any premiums.
Enhanced Display Product Link A link to a specific item that is served by Amazon.com and includes the product image, title, best price, new price, and a button so that customers can add the item to their shopping carts.
ListBuilder; Listmania Lists are an Amazon feature that lets you make your own lists of products on affiliate sites like Amazon.
Link-Type Reports Reports that show you the performance of the different link types used on your Web site, in terms of clicks, items ordered, items shipped, conversion, and referral fees.
Link Type We offer numerous ways for you to link from your site to Amazon.com and Endless.com. A brief description of each link type is written below. Visit the Build Links section for more information on the different linking methods we offer.
- Product Links: Links to detail pages of individual products offered by Amazon or one of our third-party sellers.
- Recommended Products Links: Links that are updated every time your Web page loads with new content that matches a product category or keyword you’ve chosen.
- Omakase Links: Links that are updated every time your Web page loads with new content that is personalized for the person viewing your site.
- Search Box Links: Links in which users can enter search terms and get Amazon.com results.
- Banner Links: These are links that send customers directly to the Amazon.com Home Page, an Amazon.com product category, or feature a special promotional message. Easy Links, which are dynamically updated links, and Home Page links are included in this category.
- Text Links: Any link that redirects customers to specific pages on Amazon.com, such as “Favorite Destinations” and “Link to Any Page” links.
- Web Services Links: These include individual product links that make SOAP and HTTP requests; Add-to-Cart buttons that allow visitors to add products to their shopping carts; and, Remote Shopping Cart links that allow visitors to maintain a shopping cart on your site and then transfer to Amazon.com when they are ready for checkout. Visit Web Services Applications pages for more information on this powerful linking method.
Offer Listing Page A product page that lists all the third-party vendors that offer the product and the price each one is charging. If Amazon offers the product itself, it will be included in the list as well. These pages include both new and used products and allow customers to quickly make price comparisons.
Opt-in The process by which an Associate selects either the Classic or Performance fee structure. Associates who do not select one of these fee structures are automatically enrolled in the Performance fee structure.
Orders Reports Reports that show the items your visitors have ordered and the link types that have worked best. Figures are based on items ordered but not necessarily shipped.
Payee The person or entity to whom we make payments. If you are a resident of the United States and choose to be paid by direct deposit, we will use the bank account information you provided under “Payment Method” when you registered. If you choose to be paid by check, we will make the check payable to the name you provided under “Payee Contact Information” and mail it to that address. If you choose to be paid by gift certificate, we will send them to the account’s primary e-mail address. Regardless of payment method, notification that your quarterly statement is available online is sent to the account’s primary e-mail address.
Price The amount a customer pays for an item: the list price minus any discount.
Primary E-mail Address The e-mail address of the primary user.
Primary User The user on your account that has the power to select compensation plans, change payment information, and confirm the addition of new users to the account.
Product Detail Page The page where customers read details about a product for sale on Amazon.com or Endless.com, including its name, ASIN, image, price, description, customer reviews, and ordering options. It also includes a link to the offer listing page, which includes offers from third-party sellers as well as Amazon and allows customers to quickly make price comparisons.
Product Link A link that takes a visitor from your Web site to the Amazon.com or Endless.com detail page of a product you’ve specifically chosen. These links include Product Links, add-to-cart links, and links constructed using Amazon Web Services. Links that are not considered direct include those to the Amazon.com or Endless.com home page, to search-result pages, to product category pages (e.g. Gourmet Food), and to lists (e.g., Top Sellers). Also excluded are automatically generated Recommended Product Links and Omakase Links. There are two display types forProduct Links: Enhanced Display showing extra information in a pop-over when a viewer hovers their mouse over the link, and Basic Display.
Product Link Clicks The number of clicks visitors have made on product links to specific products you’ve chosen.
Product Link Conversion An indication of how frequently visitors click on product links and then order the featured products. It is calculated by dividing the number of featured items ordered by the number of product link clicks and is expressed as a percentage. For example, if a visitor clicks on one of your product links to a camcorder and then orders it, your Product Link Conversion is 100%. If a second visitor were to click on the camcorder link but order a watch instead, your conversion would drop to 50% (1 item ordered/2 direct-link clicks). Purchase through aStore If users visiting your Store to make a purchase by adding products to the cart and clicking on the checkout button within aStore, their purchases are shown under “Purchase through aStore”
Quarter Each year is divided into four quarters: Q1 (January 1 to March 31), Q2 (April 1 to June 30), Q3 (July 1 to September 30), and Q4 (October 1 to December 31).
Quarter to Date The period from the first day of the current quarter through today.
Quarter-to-Date Earnings Your total earnings from the first day of the current quarter through yesterday.
Quick-Click Buying A link, previously available in the Build Links section, that allowed customers to add products to their Amazon.com Shopping Cart with a single mouse click. You can still put such links on your Web site, but you will need to build them manually, following the directions found at How do I build links that let customers add products directly to their Amazon.com Shopping Carts?
Referral Fee Rate The percentage of shipped items revenue that you earn for referring sales, prior to the addition of any premiums. Referral Fees The sum of base referral fees and premium fees generated from the sale of products at Amazon.com and Endless.com.
Referral from aStore If users visit your aStore and click on any link within aStore and then visit Amazon.com site, their purchases at Amazon.com and Endless.com are reflected under “Referral from aStore”.
Refunded Third-party sellers may refund their customers in part or in full for a variety of reasons: their items may have arrived damaged or not at all, the wrong items might have been sent, there may have been a delay in shipping, or the items may have been misrepresented. We mark these items “refunded,” not “returned,” because we have no way of knowing if products have been returned, only if refunds have been issued.
Returned When customers are dissatisfied with purchases from Amazon, they can return the products to our warehouses for a refund. We mark such items “returned.”
Revenue The money paid to Amazon or a third-party vendor for the purchase of products.
Search Box Link A link through which visitors can use Amazon.com’s powerful search engine to locate products they’re interested in.
Seller Whoever fulfills the order, whether Amazon or a third-party merchant
Shipped Items Revenue The money paid to Amazon or a third-party vendor for the purchase of products that were actually shipped to customers.
Third-Party Qualifying Product A product that is sold and fulfilled by a third-party vendor and that, according to the terms of the Operating Agreement, qualifies for a referral fee.
Tracking ID You may request these IDs from Associates Customer Service to track the performance of multiple Web sites or even individual links. Like Associates IDs, they appear in the links you use to refer traffic to Amazon.com. Tracking IDs remain associated with your main Associates ID and do not constitute separate accounts.
Tracking ID Summary Reports Reports that show you the performance of your individual Tracking IDs, in terms of clicks, items ordered, items shipped, shipped items revenue, referral fees, and total earnings.
XML Extensible Markup Language, a programming language that enables us to create files that can easily be shared across systems. You can download your reports in XML, and then transfer this information to your internal applications and systems.
