E-commerce Affiliate & Partner Marketing Terms

E-commerce affiliate marketing is the practice of an online retailer paying external publishers commission on the orders they drive to its store.

An e-commerce affiliate program is the structured set of deal terms, commissions, and rules a store uses to pay publishers for orders they drive.

E-commerce affiliate software is the platform a store uses to recruit, track, attribute, and pay affiliates for the orders they drive.

GMV (gross merchandise value) is the total value of all orders sold through a store over a period, before returns, discounts, fees, and costs.

AOV (average order value) is the average revenue per order over a period, calculated as total revenue divided by the number of orders.

Contribution margin is the revenue from an order or unit minus its variable costs, representing what is left to cover fixed costs and profit.

Net revenue retention is the percentage of recurring revenue kept from existing customers over a period, including expansion and net of churn.

Cart abandonment is when a shopper adds items to the basket but leaves before completing checkout, measured as abandoned carts divided by carts created.

Subscription commerce is an e-commerce model where customers are billed on a recurring schedule for replenishment, curated boxes, or memberships.

A DTC brand is a company that sells directly to consumers through its own store rather than through wholesale or retail intermediaries.

A product feed is a structured file or API of a retailer catalog (SKU, title, price, image, URL) that affiliates and shopping channels use to list products.

New customer commission is an affiliate payout that rewards partners only, or at a higher rate, for orders from first-time customers rather than returning ones.

A cashback site is an affiliate publisher that shares part of the commission it earns back with the shopper as cash rewards on purchases.

A coupon affiliate site is a publisher that lists discount and voucher codes for retailers and earns commission on the orders that use them.

A comparison shopping engine is a platform that aggregates products and prices across many retailers so shoppers can compare options before buying.

Creator commerce is the practice of creators driving product sales directly through affiliate links, storefronts, live shopping, and shoppable content.

A brand ambassador program is an arrangement that recruits loyal customers, creators, and advocates to promote a brand for commission, product, or perks.

Influencer whitelisting is when a creator grants a brand permission to run paid ads through the creator handle, so the ads appear to come from the creator.

An order bump is a low-friction add-on offer at checkout, often a single checkbox to add a complementary item, used to lift average order value.

Commission reversal is the clawback of an affiliate commission when the underlying order is later returned, refunded, cancelled, or fails validation.

CPA vs RevShare for E-commerce compares a fixed fee per confirmed sale against a recurring percentage of order or subscription revenue in e-commerce affiliate programmes.