Common Terms

Terms commonly used in Too Much Media documentation.

The Terms

Adtool

Any advertisement tracked by NATS. Includes tours.

Account Representative

A special affiliate account, created by the Program Owner, who can manage other affiliates.

Admin (Person, NATS)

A program owner or someone working on their behalf.

Admin (Webpage)

The administration interface in NATS.

Affiliate

A person who makes referrals to one or more sites.

Biller

The company that bills a member on behalf of the program manager. Also known as a Internet Payment Service Provider (IPSP).

Campaign

A NATS feature that lets affiliates track their promotions.

Cancel

An expiration that is effective immediately. See also: Expire.

CARMA

The Content Administration and Release Management Application.

Cascade

A NATS feature that sends surfers through multiple billers in order to increase sign-up probability.

Chargeback

A notice from the biller that a member rescinded a credit card transaction.

Commission

Special payout rules in a program.

Conversion

A rebill that turns a trial member into a regular member.

Credit

A refund issued to a member. Most credits are chargebacks.

Cross Sell

When a surfer becomes a member of more than one site at once through a link on the join form. Compare with Upsell.

Datalink (dataplus, etc.)

A report from the biller to NATS about rebills, chargebacks, and credits.

Domain

The fully qualified domain name of your NATS server.

Expire

Removing a member's access. Most members have expiration dates: a date when their access is removed. See also: Cancel.

Gateway

A join form hosted by NATS that sends transaction information to the biller.

GeoIP

The geographic location of an Internet protocol (IP) address. For example, the IP address, 66.230.151.34, is registered in Weehawken, NJ, USA.

Host

The person who owns, and maybe administers, a site's server.

Initial Bill

The first transaction by a member. The initial bill turns a surfer into a member or trial member.

Internet Payment Service Processor (IPSP)

A biller.

Join Form

A form where surfers enter their financial information. After completing the join form, a surfer becomes a member. (Compare with pre-join form.)

Join Option

A membership plan or purchasable item with a specific price. Join options are tied to sites or tours.

Linkcode

A referral URL tracked by NATS.

Link Domain

A site's subdomain that points to the program owner's NATS. For example: the site www.example.com could have the link domain signup.example.com.

Member

Any paying user of a site.

NATS

The Next-Generation Affiliate Tracking Software.

NATSCode

The special part of a URL that NATS uses to credit an affiliate and record statistics. The NATSCode is different for each affiliate, program, site, and adtool. For example, in the url: "http://example.com/track/MS4yLjEuNS4wLjAuMC4w", The NATSCode is the arbitrary string that follows track/, or MS4yLjEuNS4wLjAuMC4w in this case.

Non-trial Sign-up

A member who joined without first becoming a trial-member.

Override

An admin's ability to temporarily become an existing affiliate.

Partner

An affiliate who shares in part of a site's total profit.

Payment Dump

A file containing a list of transactions to be executed by the payment processor or imported into an accounting program like Intuit Quickbooks.

Payment Processor

The company that sends payments to affiliates on the program owner's behalf.

Pay Via

The method the payment processor uses to pay the affiliate.

Payout

The act of paying an affiliate through a payment processor using the program rules.

Period

Member: The amount of time between rebills. A member may only use one trial period. A recurring period continues until stopped.

Affliate: The amount time between payment cycles. By default, NATS payment cycles are bi-monthly, beginning on the 1st and 16th of the month.

Poll

A report from the biller to NATS about rebills, chargebacks, and credits.

Popup

A web browser window opened by a JavaScript function. NATS can show different popups to different surfers using a popup chain.

Popup Chain

The programing logic that determines when and which popup is displayed.

Postback

A special URL that billers use to send member account information to NATS.

Pre-Join Form

A form displayed by NATS where surfers enter their desired membership information before being sent to the biller. (Compare with join form.)

Price Cascade

A series of usually decreasing trial membership prices offered to the surfer in exit popups.

Program

Defines how affiliates get paid. The program owner may offer several different programs.

Program Owner

The NATS licensee responsible for creating programs.

Raw Hit

Every single time a surfer clicks on your link codes.

Rebill

Any transaction after the initial transaction.

Refund

A credit.

Reseller

An affiliate. (The term reseller is deprecated.)

Shortname

An internal reference name for objects tracked by NATS. Shortnames must be unique and cannot contain spaces or special characters.

Site

A website that a surfer can view and join to become a member.

Skin

The layout of the site. Different user types have different skins. (See also: template.)

Surfer

A site visitor who may become a member.

Template

The individual parts that constitute a complete skin.

Third Party

A site that bills your members and provides them with content on your behalf.

Tour

Sample content available on a site. Tours can be associated with a particular program and may feature a popup chain.

Transaction Amount

The amount charged to a member during a single billing period.

Transaction Fee

The fee kept by the biller when they charge a member. NATS can record this fee and deduct all or part of it from affiliate payouts.

Trial Sign-up

A member who signs-up to a trial account.

Unique Hit

A hit from a completely new surfer.

Upgrade (Billing)

A rebill that turns a trial-member into a full member. (An upgrade may also be called a conversion.)

Upsell

When an existing member upgrades their account to a more expensive option. Compare with Cross Sell.

Webmaster

An affiliate. (The term webmaster is deprecated.)