Common Terms

Terms commonly used on the Too Much Media wiki.

The Terms

Affiliate

A person who makes referrals to one or more sites.

Biller

The company that bills a member on behalf of the program manager.

Campaign

A NATS feature that lets affiliates track their promotions.

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A notice from the biller that a member rescinded a credit card transaction.

Conversion

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

Credit

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

Datalink (dataplus, etc.)

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

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.

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.)

Link Code

A referral URL tracked by NATS.

Links 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

The user of a site.

NATS

The Next-Generation Affiliate Tracking Software.

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 or member.

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 your behalf.

Payout

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

Period

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

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.

Rebill

Any transaction after the initial transaction.

Reseller

An affiliate. (The term reseller is deprecated.)

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.

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.

Upgrade (Billing)

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

Webmaster

An affiliate. (The term webmaster is deprecated.)