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Affiliate marketing for dummies: Digital
Marketing Definitions you should know
When you are new to digital marketing, things can be very confusing, we know that. All that
complex terminology that dominates the industry can be complicated to a new affiliate. You
may feel like you don’t belong in this industry when you fail to understand terms like CTR or
CPM. To help you with this, we’ve created an affiliate marketing for dummies guide so that
you can understand the jargons of this industry and become a wealthy affiliate! Here they
are, all of the digital marketing definitions that you need to know:
CTR – Click-Through Rate. The CTR shows the percentage of people who click on a link. This
link is usually placed in an ad, on a website page, in an email or other places. Needless to say
that the higher the CTR percentage, the more people followed that link. This is a very
common term in the digital word.
CPC – Cost per Click. (Also called PPC – Pay-per-click). The CPC is a pricing model used to
direct traffic to websites, in which advertisers pay the publisher (usually a website owner)
when the link is clicked by the viewer.
CPA – Cost per Acquisition. The CPA is a pricing model where companies are charged by
advertising platforms only when the action generates leads, sales or conversions. Although it
has been around for a while, this has become highly popular only in the recent years. When
learning affiliate marketing for dummies it’s good to know that the best part about CPA is
that you are only charged for the results that you want.
CPM – Cost per Thousand. The CPM is a pricing model where advertising impressions are
bought and companies are charged according to the number of times their ad appears per
1,000 impressions. Even if you’re new in this industry and are still struggling with learning
affiliate marketing for dummies tricks, know that the CPM is a form of selling ads by

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publishers because they are guaranteed to get paid by just displaying ads. It’s best to use this
pricing model if you’re trying to increase brand awareness.
Conversion. If a viewer does the desired action while he or she’s on your site, it’s called
conversion. It can be a signup, a purchase, a download or even a registration for a
newsletter.
Impressions. Defines the number of times a company’s ad appears on its targeted audience.
This term is also related to a site and the number of times that specific web page appears in
total. To better explain this in affiliate marketing for dummies terms: 1 visitor views 5 pages,
which creates 5 impressions. 2 visitors view 5 pages, which generate 10 impressions.
Keyword. A word or a phrase that people use to search for relevant content on search
engines.
Organic traffic. Also known as free traffic, organic traffic is traffic that comes to your website
as a result of unpaid search results. It can be generated by searches that people make on
search engines such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. Any affiliate marketing for dummies book will
tell you that this is the best possible type of traffic!
Paid traffic. The traffic that is generated to a website by paid advertisements. The ads are
based on keywords and these results appear separately, either on the top, bottom or right
side of a search results page. The ad is always marked by the search engine with “Paid ad”.
SEO - Search Engine Optimization. SEO is a methodology of strategies, techniques and
tactics used to increase the traffic of a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the
search results page of a search engine (SERP). If you rank high, you usually have more traffic
generated and more targeted traffic.
SEM - Search Engine Marketing. Is a way in which companies can obtain a higher placement
on search engines by bidding on search terms.
SERP - Search Engine Results Page. This is the list of results that are shown by a search
engine after a query is made.
Domain Authority. Explained in affiliate marketing for dummies terms, this is a scale from 1
to 100 that search engines use to see how much authority a website has. Needless to say
that 1 is the lowest value, while 100 is the highest. Of course, the search engines like and
trust the sites that have higher domain authority.
Keyword Stuffing. If you see stuffing, you know that it’s too much! Using too many keywords
in the content hoping to make it more visible to search engines is called keyword stuffing.
This practice is penalized by search engines, so this affiliate marketing for dummies guide
advises you to not resort to it.
META Description. This is the short description that appears on the search engine results
page.
RSS - Really Simple Syndication. RSS defines a technology which provides users automatic
alerts when new updates are made on a website that they subscribed too. For that to
happen, the user needs a RSS reader which receives all the updates.

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Viral Marketing. Everything that’s viral is good when it comes to the digital world, but you
don’t need affiliate marketing for dummies lessons to know that. Viral marketing happens
when the audience is encouraged to pass on to others a certain post. A successful marketing
campaign contains something that can be easily shared. It’s important to know that
everything that’s viral is not paid, otherwise it would be considered paid traffic.
Landing page. This is the page that is optimized to be the entry page to a website. When it’s
redirected from external links, this landing page is where the visitors will be led back.
Wrapping things up
The terminology of digital marketing may seem confusing when you’re a beginner, but after
a while it all makes sense. It’s normal not to know every single definition, after all, you’re not
an encyclopedia. Either way, if you ever feel unsure of something, you can always come back
to this article and refresh your memory!