Glossary
Below is a useful list of common affiliate marketing and GYMSECT terms, as well as other relevant terms.
Affiliate – A person, business or website who promote GYMSECT products and/or services to potential customers, in exchange for a commission on a sale or a successful conversion.
Affiliate Area – The area on the front end of Gymsect.com where affiliates can log in to view statistics, visits, referrals, earnings, and creatives.
Affiliate coupon – A discount coupon code that is allocated to a specific affiliate’s account. When the affiliate coupon is redeemed by a customer at checkout, the connected affiliate is awarded a referral as though the customer had used a referral link.
Affiliate I.D. – A unique I.D. which is automatically assigned to each affiliate when they register themselves and are approved by GYMSECT. It is a means of identifying an affiliate. The affiliate I.D. appears in the affiliate’s referral link when they are promoting GYMSECT products and/or services so they can be tracked when visitors come to Gymsect.com.
Affiliate login form – A form that is visible on the front end of Gymsect.com where affiliates can log in to their private Affiliate Area.
Affiliate marketing – A performance-based marketing system whereby GYMSECT rewards affiliates when customers are brought in by the affiliate’s marketing efforts.
Affiliate program – A marketing program which is run by GYMSECT to recruit affiliates to promote their products or services for a commission or reward.
Affiliate referral URL/Affiliate referral link – The URL/link affiliates use to promote GYMSECT products or website. It has the affiliate I.D. or username appended to it so the affiliate can be tracked when a visitor or customer visits Gymsect.com. If the customer successfully completes a conversion (sale/purchase), a referral will be generated and the affiliate will be awarded a commission.
Affiliate registration form – A form that is visible on the front end of Gymsect.com where potential affiliates register themselves for the GYMSECT affiliate program. Applications will either be accepted or rejected by GYMSECT.
- Account email – this refers to the potential affiliate’s email address that will be used to log in to their private Affiliate Area on Gymsect.com so they can see their statistics and data. This email address may be linked to their business or website.
- Payment email – this refers to the email address the potential affiliate has linked to PayPal. People often use a different email address for payment gateways (a personal email address, rather than a business email address or an address linked to their website).
- Website URL – this refers to the potential affiliate’s website, where they will promote GYMSECT products to their readers or followers. This could be the potential affiliate’s own website, or it could be the potential affiliate’s Twitter account, their Facebook account, etc.
Affiliate status – An existing or potential affiliate’s account status on Gymsect.com. The possible status options for an affiliate’s account are as follows:
- Active – this means the affiliate is active and able to generate referrals and commission.
- Inactive – this means the affiliate is not active and is unable to generate referrals and commission.
- Pending – this means an affiliate application has been received, but the application is yet to be Accepted by GYMSECT.
- Rejected – this means the affiliate was rejected and is unable to generate referrals and commission.
Affiliate username – The affiliate username is the one chosen by the affiliate at the time of registration, and is a means of identifying an affiliate. The affiliate can use their username in their affiliate referral links instead of their affiliate I.D.
Campaign – Affiliate referral links can include a campaign parameter to help affiliates track and monitor the performance of their affiliate links. Affiliates can use campaigns to track where referrals are coming from. Affiliates can name each campaign in the Affiliate Area when generating an affiliate referral link, and the campaign name will be automatically appended to their affiliate referral link. They can then choose to place a campaign-specific link in a specific marketing channel in order to gauge how successful that platform is for marketing. This helps them see where they should focus their marketing efforts for maximum sales and referrals. The campaigns set up by the affiliate are visible when they are logged in to the Affiliate Area. Campaign names should reflect the channels they are applied too. Some examples of campaign names an affiliate may use are: “Winter email”, “Twitter January”, “Facebook autumn”, “Summer special”, and so on.
Commission – A percentage of a purchase total (excluding delivery and/or taxes) or flat rate monetary amount that is awarded to the affiliate each time a customer successfully purchases a product or service via an affiliate’s referral link or coupon code.
Commission rate – The value which affiliates will receive when a purchase or conversion is successfully made. The commission rate can either be a percentage (i.e. 20%) of the total purchase (excluding delivery and/or taxes), or a flat rate (i.e. £5).
Conversion – A conversion occurs when a person visits Gymsect.com and purchases a product/service.
Cookie – A small piece of data which is stored in a user’s web browser when they visit a website. GYMSECT stores three cookies:
- affwp_ref_visit_id – This cookie stores the visit ID (the visit ID increments by 1 each time any referral link is used until the cookie expires or is deleted).
- affwp_ref – This cookie stores the affiliate ID.
- affwp_campaign – This cookie stores the campaign name when affiliates create a campaign to track referrals from specific sources of traffic (i.e. email, social media, their website, etc.).
Cookie expiration – How long the cookies stay in a customer’s browser.
Coupon – A code with a discount that a customer uses to receive a discount when purchasing a product from Gymsect.com.
Creatives – Text links or banner images with embedded affiliate referral links which affiliates can use to promote GYMSECT products. Affiliates will be able to see these materials in their private Affiliate Area.
Customer – A visitor to Gymsect.com who completes a purchase of a product or service.
Earnings – The total amount of commission an affiliate has earned and/or received:
- Unpaid earnings – The total amount of commission an affiliate has earned that is yet to be paid.
- Paid earnings – The total amount of commission an affiliate has been paid.
Emails – GYMSECT utilises several automated emails which are sent to either potential new affiliates, or currently active affiliates. These are relevant emails and not spam.
Payout/payment – The payment made to affiliates after a certain period of time (usually 30 days) whereby they receive all unpaid earnings owed to them through PayPal.
Payment gateway – A secure and encrypted eCommerce service provider that authorises credit card and monetary payments for web-based businesses and individuals. Some examples of popular payment gateways are PayPal, Stripe, and Skrill, to name a few.
Product – A physical or digital item that is bought from Gymsect.com.
Purchase – The acquisition of a product or service by paying for it.
Referral – This is the conversion and commission data recorded for an affiliate when a conversion is successful. A referral is generated when a visitor successfully purchases a product/service, after visiting Gymsect.com via the affiliate’s referral link.
Referral I.D. – A unique I.D. that is automatically assigned to each referral for internal tracking purposes.
Referral rate type – The type of commission that will be calculated for affiliates on a product or service. The referral rate type can be a percentage of a sale (excluding delivery and/or taxes) (i.e. 20%), or a flat rate (i.e. £5.00).
Referral status – when a referral is generated, its status is automatically set to Unpaid by default. This means the affiliate can see they have earned a referral and how much the commission will be (however it has not yet been paid to them). Below are the possible referral statuses:
- Pending – the referral is not yet visible to the affiliate and can be reviewed by Gymsect.com before it is “Accepted” and set to Unpaid status.
- Unpaid – the affiliate can see the referral in the Affiliate Area, and the total owing to them is shown in their Unpaid Earnings.
- Paid – when a commission owing to an affiliate has been paid to them via PayPal.
- Rejected – this status can be manually set by Gymsect.com if we wish to reject a referral.
Sale – When a product or service is exchanged for payment, and the transaction between Gymsect.com and the buyer is completed.
Service – Work that is undertaken for a fee or payment.
Member – A visitor who comes to Gymsect.com and signs up or pays to receive access to content or products.
Terms & conditions/Terms of use – An agreement or set of rules which users must abide by in order to use a product or service on Gymsect.com. It protects both us and the user so they know what they are entitled to, and so we can ensure our affiliates are promoting GYMSECT products/website correctly.
Visit – A unique hit when someone visits Gymsect.com. Visits are the number of of times Gymsect.com is visited (by the same visitor or multiple visitors). A visit is recorded when a visitor lands on Gymsect.com after clicking on an affiliate referral link. When a visit occurs, GYMSECT stores two cookies in the customer’s browser. A new visit will not be recorded unless the stored affwp_ref_visit_ID cookie expires, or the visitor clears their browser cookies. These visits are visible to GYMSECT, and to the affiliate when they are logged in to the Affiliate Area.
Visitor – An individual who lands on Gymsect.com for the purpose of viewing content they are interested in, or potentially purchasing a product or service.
