Terminology & Metrics
In this guide, you will get familiar with the terminology and metrics used on the Scaleo platform.
Basic Terminology
Offer — this is the key element of the platform, an agreement between the parties. An offer describes all the parameters of the deal, such as — what is considered a successful result, its rate and payout, and what product or service is promoted.
Smart Link — a feature that allows promoting several offers using the same tracking link.
Tracking Link — a tracking link is typically used to monitor and determine the effectiveness of marketing promotions and advertising campaigns. In other words, the tracking URL is tracking the number of clicks the link receives on targeted resources. You can track the links on a website or landing page, in emails, added to messages and posts on social media, related to ads or banners, etc. When the user completes a conversion, it will be detected and displayed on the Scaleo dashboard.
Conversion — a target action performed by a user on the website. It can include interaction with a feedback form, ordering callback, buying something, mobile app installations, etc.
Partner / Publisher / Affiliate / Influencer — a person or a company that encourages people to buy the advertiser's product. They own some resources and earn a commission for providing traffic to the advertiser's landing page. Typically, they are media buyers or content creators like game developers or bloggers, as well as Instagram opinion leaders or companies involved in affiliate marketing.
Payout — the amount you pay to your affiliate for every completed goal.
Revenue — the amount that the advertiser pays you for every completed Goal
Profit — the amount you earn on every conversion. To calculate it, subtract the payout of revenue.
Advertiser — this is a company that sells goods or services. They want to be advertised and are ready to pay for it. They create an offer, buy ads, and pay the partners for each successful conversion.
User — a person that takes an action on your tracking link. When they see ads with a built-in Tracking Link, they click on the banner or any other type of ads. It starts the tracking process. Usually, the number of users is the same as the number of clicks.
Postback / Tracking Pixel — this is a special link that is used by the advertising network to report about the operations performed on the website and analyze the collected statistics. When Postback is set up and the necessary actions are taken, the network will send the indicators stated in the link. This is a piece of code you add to the target page layout. There is a postback/tracking pixel both for advertisers and publishers.
Goals — a goal represents a completed activity, called a conversion, what your affiliates are paid for. It includes a variety of actions: filling in the profile info, uploading a photo, email confirmation, registration on the website, etc. With Scaleo, you can use various types of goals — CPC, CPA, CPL, CPS, CPI — in the same offer.
Cap — this is a special setting in the offer that limits the maximum number of actions within a specific period: day, month, year, or in total. This is an essential feature to keep your budgets within expectations. When you work with strict budgets, make sure to be extra careful in your Cap setup.
Advanced Terminology
Click to Conversion Time (Time Difference) — the time between the initial click on the ad when the goal is completed.
Session IP — the IP address that the user used to click the tracking link from the Partner.
Conversion IP — the IP address that the user used to complete a conversion. If you use a postback, it will represent the IP address of the advertiser's server.
Metrics
In this guide, you will get familiar with the metrics used on the Scaleo platform.
Clicks — a process of pressing a mouse button one or more times. In affiliate marketing, when the user clicks on a tracking link or a creative, he is redirected to the Advertiser's landing or sales page.
Gross Clicks — all the clicks, including Unique, Duplicate, and Invalid.
- Unique Clicks — clicks received from a unique users for a specific time. They redirect the user to the destination URL and target page.
- Invalid Clicks — clicks that do not fit the Offer for any reason. These clicks cannot redirect the user to the destination URL. Instead, they redirect to a Trafficback URL.
- Duplicate clicks — several identical clicks are considered duplicates. These clicks can redirect the user to the destination URL and target page.
Revenue — the total amount that the advertiser pays you for every completed Goal.
Payout — the amount you pay the Partner or a publishing source for every completed Goal.
Profit — the commission earned by the affiliate network on each conversion.
Margin — the difference between Revenue and Payout, displayed in percentage.
Impressions — the result of viewing or displaying the Offer's creative.
Conversions — a target action performed by a user on the website. It may include interaction with a feedback form, ordering callback, making a purchase, mobile app installations, generating a lead for an advertiser, etc. Affiliates (publishers) earn commissions for each conversion.
Approved Conversions — conversions that were approved by the Administrator or Manager.
CR — Conversion Rate. An average number of conversions per click, displayed in percentage.
Pending Conversions — when a conversion has a pending status, you can review and process each conversion before marking it as Approved or Rejected.
PR — Pending Conversions Rate. An average number of pending conversions per click, displayed in percentage.
Rejected Conversions — conversions that were rejected by the Administrator or Manager.
RR — Rejected Conversions Rate. An average number of rejected conversions per click, displayed in percentage.
TR — Total Conversion Rate. An average number of all the conversions per click, displayed in percentage.
Gross Sales — sale amount on advertisers' side, transferred in the &amount= spot parameter at the postback link.
Fraud — ad fraud is a type of scam when the scammer cheats advertisers to pay for something that has no value. It can include fake traffic, fake leads, or misrepresented and ineffective ad placement.
CTR — Click-Through Rate. This metric is calculated based on the number of users that clicked on the advertisement, divided by the number of total users who viewed the ad creative. It is displayed in percentage.
RPC — Revenue per Click. Total Revenue divided by the number of clicks.
CPC — Cost per Click. Total cost (Partner payout) divided by the number of clicks.
EPC — Earnings per Click. A metric used to measure the average earnings generated by one click on an affiliate marketing link or ads. Total Earnings divided by the number of clicks.
RPA — Revenue per Approved Conversion. Total revenue received from the Advertiser for each approved conversion.
CPA — Cost per Approved Conversion. Also known as Cost per Action. An online advertising pricing model when the advertiser pays for a specific action: sale, click, or form submission. Total cost (Partner payout) for each approved conversion.
EPA — Earnings per Approved Conversion. Total earnings for each approved conversion.
CPS — Cost per Sale. An online advertising model when the publisher or website owner is paid based on the number of sales that are directly generated by the advertisement. On the Scaleo platform, an Advertiser pays a commission for each sale in a percent to the sale's amount??, where percent values are set individually in each Offer.
CPI — Cost per Install. An online advertising model when the advertiser pays to the publisher a commission for every install completed by the user. Mostly it is a free application with the advertising module. First, the users are asked whether they really want to download and install this software. The term is used not only for software installation.
CPL — Cost per Lead. An online advertising pricing model when the advertiser pays for a specific sign-up form, filled by a customer who is potentially interested in the advertiser's offer. It is also commonly called the Online Lead Generation.
RPM — Revenue per 1000 impressions. Total revenue divided by the number of impressions and multiplied by 1000: (revenue/impressions) × 1000.
CPM — Cost per 1000 impressions. Total cost (Partner payout) divided by the number of impressions and multiplied by 1000: (cost/impressions) × 1000.
EPM — Earnings per 1000 impressions. Total earnings divided by the number of impressions and multiplied by 1000: (cost/impressions) × 1000.