What exactly is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a legal business, and Here, I'll explain it to you. 

The road ahead won't be simple, and you won't become a success overnight.
Affiliate marketing, on the other hand, has the potential to be highly successful.

To get started, read this beginner's tutorial on affiliate marketing.
So, let's get began right now!

It's the process of promoting a company's products or services to potential clients to generate a sale and earn a commission. The affiliate website, the affiliate network, the advertiser, and the buyers are all involved in the affiliate marketing process. However, there is no need to be perplexed by this, as many newcomers are. but there is no need to be confusing. Please allow me to explain in layman's words.

The term affiliate marketing refers to the practice of promoting the products of another company. As an affiliate, you earn a commission when someone makes a purchase using your link.  

In the world of affiliate marketing, there is a certain language that is used.
As a term, affiliate marketing is a jumble of words that can be difficult to understand.

list of the extremely important affiliate marketing definitions which every affiliate marketer would need:

Affiliate: A third party promotes the merchant's product. Also known as a partner, associate, or publisher. 

Affiliate Network: A service that facilitates commerce by acting as a middleman between the merchant and the affiliate.
Affiliate networks such as Google Affiliate Network, Clickbank, Commission Junction, Flesoffers, Fiverr, impact, Awin, and more are hubs that connect publishers and advertisers.
These networks have the technological wherewithal to track transactions and leads offer payment solutions and requisite reports. Advertisers, of course, have the option of using these established networks for their programs or employing their own in-house platform.

Affiliate Manager: A person who acts as a liaison between affiliates and merchants. Their purpose is to improve the affiliate program's performance.
These people carry the onus to recruit affiliates, ensure affiliates are promoting their products and services in a legitimate manner, and increase sales from affiliates. 
Affiliate managers are usually a bridge between the affiliate and the advertiser. 
They could either be in-house employees of the advertiser or offer services as third-party vendors such as affiliate networks.

Affiliate Program: An affiliate program is one of the programs offered by advertisers to publishers in which the latter refers people to the products and services of the former. In return, the advertiser pays the publisher a predetermined commission.
An affiliate program is one that is offered by advertisers to publishers wherein the latter refers people to the products and services of the former.   
Many advertisers use their in-house affiliate programs that are referred to as indie programs the full form of which is “independent affiliate programs.”

Super Affiliates: Super affiliates make up less than 20% of all affiliates, but they account for 80% of all conversions.

The tracking link: is also known as the affiliate link. This is a one-of-a-kind URL that tracks the affiliate's clicks and conversions.

Conversion: A merchant-defined activity that results in a payment to the affiliate. It can be anything the merchant wants it to be, but it's usually a lead or a product purchase.
Conversion is said to be achieved if a visitor to your website has clicked on the advertiser’s link and has completed the required action plan such as signing up for the advertiser’s website or purchasing a product. Conversions are dependent on the desired result and will vary from advertiser to advertiser.

Cookies: Using cookies, web browsers can track and store important marketing data such as user registration and login information, shopping cart contents, and user preferences, among others. I'm sure you've clicked "Yes" on the computer's "Do you want your user id and password remembered for this website?" question many times. That's an example of what a cookie looks like.

CPA (Cost per Action): A commission scheme in which affiliates are only paid for conversions.

CPC (Cost per Click): A commission arrangement in which affiliates are paid only on clicks. It's more commonly associated with ad banners than with affiliate marketing.

The click-through rate (CTR): is known as The percentage of affiliate-link clicks per number of web page impressions.

CPL: The full form of CPL is the cost per lead and again as the name suggests, it is the amount paid by the advertiser to the publisher for every qualified lead which could be in the form of the email ID, completed registration forms, a survey form, or any other as described in the affiliate agreement.

EPC: The full form of EPC is Earning Per Click which is the average income you earn as an affiliate for every click. To calculate EPC, you would need to divide the amount of commission earned by the total number of clicks on the affiliate link. Here is an example to illustrate EPC: suppose you have earned $5000 as earnings in the entire lifetime of your affiliate membership for a particular link and the total number of clicks is 14,000, then the EPC would be 5000/14000 = 35 cents.

PPC: The full form of PPC is pay per click and this payment model entails that the advertiser should make commission payments for every click on the affiliate’s advert. Also referred to as cost per click or CPC, this payment model is used by many established advertisers and affiliate networks.

Tracking Code: The tracking is the unique ID given to you by the advertiser when you first sign up for the affiliate agreement. This tracking code helps keep track of traffic, sales, and leads generated by you as an affiliate based on which commission payments are made.

Merchant: A company that sells products.

Product:  The element that the merchant sells and that is promoted by an associate.

ROI: The full form of ROI is Return on Investment. In simple terms, this is calculated by evaluating the profit (or loss) made against the amount of money invested in the business. The invested amount would be a sum of amounts used for setting up the business, advertising costs, running costs, and more.

Creative: The affiliate uses a banner or text ad to promote the merchant's product.

copy: Writing that helps promote a product, known as copywriting.

Landing Page: The merchant's webpage to which affiliates direct traffic via an affiliate link.

Co-branding: A situation in which the affiliate's logo, copy, or branding appears on the merchant's landing page.

link Cloaking: Redirect visitors to an alternative URL that is more appealing to them, such as the merchant's website. In order to better manage and track links, link cloaking is a useful tool that can be employed.

Ad Blocker: this is a browser feature that prevents affiliate clicks and conversions from being tracked. It can also block the display of advertising banners.

Offer: An offer is a specific promotion of a product that is made available to the public.

Prospect: An individual who makes a purchase from the merchant; a potential customer.