Affiliate Link
A link with your personal tracking ID — you earn a commission when someone buys through it.
An affiliate link carries a unique tracking ID at the end (often as ?tag=, ?ref=, or ?aff=) that identifies you as the referrer. If someone clicks and buys on the destination site, you earn a commission — typically 5-30% of the order value.
Commissions are settled by the affiliate network: Amazon Associates, ShareASale, Impact, CJ Affiliate, Awin, ClickBank, Digistore24 (EU), CopeCart (EU). Cookie window per click: usually 7-90 days depending on the program.
Affiliate marketers use short links because 1) raw affiliate URLs are long and ugly, 2) shorteners give you click analytics the network does not, and 3) you can switch programs without updating every old blog post or Instagram caption.
How Affiliate Marketing use this term
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