Definitions

What is a publisher?
A publisher, also known as an affiliate or reseller, is an independent party that promotes products and services of an advertiser in exchange for a commission on leads or sales. A publisher displays an advertiser's ads, text links, or product links on their Web site, in e-mail campaigns, or in search listings. The publisher is paid a commission by the respective advertiser when a visitor takes a specific action such as filling out a form, subscribing to a service (both lead examples) or making a purchase (a sale).

What is an advertiser?
An advertiser, also known as a merchant or retailer, is a Web site or company that sells a product or service online, accepts payments and fulfills orders. Advertisers partner with publishers to help promote their products and services. Publishers place advertisers' ads, text links, or product links on their Web sites or include them in e-mail campaigns and search listings in exchange for commissions on leads or sales.

What is performance-based marketing?
Paying for actions taken by a consumer as they occur on the Internet, rather than paying up front for advertising space. Any type of revenue sharing program where a publisher receives a commission for generating a lead or sale for an advertiser.

What is an ASP (application service provider)?
An ASP is an online network that is accessible through the Internet instead of through the installation of software. It is quickly integrated with other Web sites and the services are easily implemented and scalable. An example of an ASP is the I-W-M Marketplace.

What is a commission payout?
A commission payout is an amount of income received by a publisher for some quantifiable action such as selling an advertiser's product and/or service on the publisher's Web site.

What is click-through (also called click)?
A click-through refers to the action a consumer takes when they are referred from one Web site through a link or advertisement and is taken to another Web site. Click-through ratio is the percentage of clicks for the number of advertising impressions displayed.

What is CPA (cost per action)?
CPA is a metric for online advertising where a rate is set for every action that is taken by a user.

What is CPM (cost per thousand impressions)?
CPM is a metric for online advertising where a rate is set for every thousand impressions.

What is EPC (average earnings per 100 clicks)?
EPC is an exclusive metric of the I-W-M Marketplace given for publishers, advertisers, and individual ads, and is a relative rating that illustrates the ability to convert clicks into commissions. For publishers, an advertiser's EPC shows how well that advertiser converts traffic into actual sales or leads. For advertisers, a publisher's EPC shows how well that publisher sends relevant traffic to advertisers' sites. EPC is published in two forms, 7-day and 3-month.

What is an impression?
An impression is the viewing of an advertising banner, link, or product on the Internet.

What is conversion rate?
The conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take a desired action. The action that determines conversion is determined by the advertiser and may be a sale on the advertiser's Web site, a completed lead form, or another action.
Affiliate Marketing


What is an affiliate marketing program?
(Also called Affiliate Marketing, Advertising, Performance Marketing, Partner Marketing, CPA, or Associate Program) In an affiliate marketing program, a publisher receives a commission for generating a transaction, such as a lead or sale, for an advertiser that the publisher is promoting. The advertiser provides its ads to publishers and assigns a commission for each action it wants to accomplish. Publishers place the tracking code for these ads on their Web sites, in their email campaigns, or in search listings. Whenever a visitor uses these links to generate an action on the advertiser site, that transaction is tracked online. If a product or service is purchased, the customer pays the advertiser directly, and the publisher is paid a commission for that transaction.

What is the I-W-M Marketplace?
The I-W-M Marketplace is a feature in the I-W-M network solution that openly publishes the performance of advertisers, publishers, and ads.

What are the requirements for an affiliate marketing program for an advertiser?
An advertiser has a product or service it wants to advertise and sell via the Internet. I-W-M advertisers must apply to join and are screened by criteria such as the advertiser's business model and objectives. Advertisers pay to activate their programs and must also meet a monthly minimum in transaction revenue or pay a monthly fee if the minimum is not reached. To set up their programs, advertisers must have creative to advertise their products or services, in the form of banners, text links, or product links. We recommend that advertisers have a dedicated person or resource to manage their programs for the best results. Review our advertiser criteria.

How do publishers join the I-W-M Marketplace?
Publishers may create a I-W-M account and join the I-W-M Marketplace at no cost. However, publishers must regularly generate activity within the network (within six months) in order to maintain an active account that I-W-M supports. Publishers must have a valid email account to complete their applications. Publishers must join an advertiser's program (through the I-W-M Account Manager) before being able to use that advertiser's links on their Web sites. As a publisher, once you have placed ads on your site, you can monitor your transactions in the I-W-M Account Manager. For the best results, you need to have steady traffic to your Web site, and you need to test different links and advertiser programs to find the ones that are best suited to your site and your audience.

What technical skills do publishers need to have?
Publishers need to be able to copy and paste HTML code and place it accurately within the code of a Web page or within an email.

What types of commission structures does I-W-M allow?
I-W-M supports multiple action types. An action can be a sale on an advertiser's Web site, a lead, or any other objective the advertiser wants to accomplish through its publishers. With a sale action, an advertiser pays a publisher a flat rate or percentage of the sale price when a purchase is made on the advertiser's Web site. With a lead action, an advertiser pays a publisher a flat rate for each visitor the publisher refers to the advertiser's site that signs up for a service or fills out a form. Many advertisers also successfully run a "hybrid" program, which is a combination of the sale and lead programs.

How does I-W-M get paid?
Each advertiser pays I-W-M a transaction fee based on the payout rate (commission) set for their publishers.

What types of links do advertisers provide in the I-W-M network?
Advertisers can upload a large variety of ad types that are all IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) compliant. These link types include banners (in a variety of sizes), text links, product links, and other advanced link types, such as search boxes.

How do I-W-M Marketplace publishers get paid?
I-W-M aggregates each publisher's total commissions earned each month from all advertisers that publisher partners within the I-W-M Marketplace, and if this amount exceeds the minimum payout, I-W-M sends a paycheck (or direct deposit) in the publisher's designated currency. For this reason, each advertiser is required to keep a minimum balance in its I-W-M account so that publishers can be paid by I-W-M. When I-W-M issues a check to a publisher, it is for the previous month's transactions. Until a publisher's account balance reaches the minimum payout, I-W-M rolls over the previous month's earnings into the following month. This means that after a withdrawal is made to process a check, the money that has been earned during the current month will remain in the account. Publishers may choose to receive their payments through a check in the mail or, if they are a resident of the U.S. or Canada, through direct deposit to a designated bank account. There is no charge for this service. At this time, direct deposit is only available to U.S., U.K., German, French, Swedish and Canadian publishers.

How long does it take for an affiliate marketing program to become established?
I-W-M promotes each new advertiser to help it get started and recruit publishers to its program. However, I-W-M can only provide advertisers with the tools to manage their accounts. The extent and speed of an advertiser program's success depends on how well the program is managed, how much the advertiser promotes and recruits for the program outside the network, and how much effort is put into learning the I-W-M tools and using them regularly and effectively.
Tracking


How does I-W-M track transactions on the Web?
I-W-M uses cookies to track advertiser sales and leads. Cookies are used in two stages of tracking: at ad load and when the ad is clicked. The function of these cookies is solely for the purpose of paying publishers (Web site owners) commissions when a consumer creates a lead or makes a purchase.

What about customers who have their cookies turned off?
Over 99% of all Internet users have cookies enabled in their browsers (less than 1% of all users have their cookies disabled). The fact is that cookie-based technology is a reality that will remain a part of consumer tracking for individual Internet businesses. In the highly unlikely situation that a customer has cookies disabled, the customer is out of the range of publisher tracking and sales that occur cannot be tracked.

Does I-W-M access unique information on customers or site visitors?
No, I-W-M is a leader in performance-based online marketing solutions and does not use its technology as an analysis tool for profiling online customer use. For more information, see our privacy policy.

How does I-W-M know which publisher to pay for a transaction?
Essentially, because I-W-M is a cookie-based system, it has the ability to pass unique information regarding the publisher and the advertising links used to the customer. That information resides within the customer browser for however long that cookie is set to last (determined by each advertiser) or until that customer purchases a product.