Webmaster dictionary
Crypto Affiliate Marketing Glossary
Every affiliate marketing term you will meet in crypto programs, explained in one plain sentence plus a real example — from CPA and RevShare to postbacks, negative carryover and Tier-1 GEOs.
Free to apply. Approval depends on your traffic sources and the program terms.
80 terms This glossary collects the words you will run into when you join crypto affiliate programs, read their terms or talk to an affiliate manager. Each entry starts with one plain sentence — the same text you see when you hover a dotted term anywhere on this site — followed by a short explanation and, where it helps, a real example taken from the programs we track. Commission rates, thresholds and payout schedules quoted in the examples come from our research on each program, so you can compare them directly with the program catalog.
How to use this affiliate marketing dictionary
Jump to a letter with the A–Z bar, or use your browser’s search to find a term. Many entries list aliases, because the industry rarely agrees on names: exchanges call commission a “rebate”, networks call affiliates “webmasters”, and a “referral link” is the same thing as an “affiliate link”. The arrows under each definition point to related terms, so you can follow a thread — say, from postback to SubID to tracker — without losing your place.
If a word is new to you, read the example rather than only the definition. “Up to 50% lifetime RevShare” sounds simple until you know that the rate usually applies to the exchange’s net fees, depends on your commission tier and may only start once each user passes KYC.
The 10 crypto affiliate terms to learn first
If you are just starting out, these ten terms cover most of what you need to read a program’s terms page and compare offers honestly:
- CPA — a fixed one-time payment per qualified user.
- RevShare — a percentage of the trading fees your referrals pay, often for life.
- Hybrid — part CPA, part RevShare, usually negotiated once you have traffic.
- Cookie life — how long a click keeps you credited before the user converts.
- Referral code — the code that binds a new account to you, even without a click.
- KYC — identity verification, the step where most crypto sign-ups drop out.
- Qualified user — the exact conditions a referral must meet before you are paid.
- Sub-affiliate — a marketer you recruit, earning you a share of their results.
- Postback — the server message that reports conversions to your tracker.
- Minimum payout — the balance you must reach before money leaves the program.
Once these feel familiar, the CPA vs RevShare vs Hybrid guide shows how to choose a payment model, and the beginner’s guide to crypto affiliate marketing walks through picking a niche and your first programs.
Terms that protect your commissions
A handful of entries matter less for earning and more for keeping what you earn. Brand bidding, incentivized traffic and self-referral are the most common reasons programs void commissions or close accounts. Negative carryover and hold periods decide when — and whether — a balance is actually paid. Read them alongside the crypto affiliate compliance guide before you scale any campaign, and set up S2S tracking early using the tracking, postback and SubID guide so your own numbers can back you up if reports ever look wrong.
A
AdvertiserMerchant · Brand
The company that pays for results — the exchange, wallet or app whose offer you promote.
Advertisers set the rules: payout, cookie life, allowed traffic and GEOs. They work with affiliates directly through their own program or through a network that handles tracking and payments for them. Browse advertisers by vertical in the program catalog.
Affiliate agreementAffiliate terms · Partner agreement · Terms and conditions
The contract that sets your commission, allowed traffic, payout rules and the reasons a program can withhold payment.
Read it before you promote anything. It lists banned traffic (brand bidding, incentivized sign-ups, spam), defines a qualified user, says whether there's negative carryover and explains what happens to unpaid balances if you're removed. Some terms go further — CoinLedger, for example, bans posting negative comments about it. Programs can update terms, so re-check them from time to time.
→ Brand bidding, Negative carryover, Self-referral, Affiliate disclosure
Affiliate disclosureDisclosure · Ad disclosure
A clear note telling readers or viewers that you may earn a commission from the links you share.
Consumer-protection rules in many countries require it, and many programs demand it in their terms. Put it next to the links, not hidden in a footer, and pair it with a plain risk warning when you promote crypto trading. More in the compliance guide.
Affiliate linkReferral link · Tracking link · Partner link
Your personal URL that tells the program a visitor came from you. Clicks and sign-ups through it are credited to your account.
An affiliate link carries your partner ID and can also carry SubIDs for your own tracking. Programs generate links in the dashboard, and many let you point them at any page through a deep link. Always test a new link in a private browser window before you publish it, and check that the referral code is pre-filled on the sign-up form.
Affiliate managerAM · Partner manager · Account manager
Your contact person at a program or network. They approve applications, answer rule questions and can negotiate better rates.
A good affiliate manager can move you up a tier, approve a custom CPA or hybrid deal, send creatives in your language or confirm whether a traffic source is allowed. Bring real numbers — clicks, registrations, deposits — when you ask for better terms. Where to meet managers and other affiliates is covered in the communities guide.
Affiliate networkNetwork · Affiliate platform
A platform that connects many advertisers with many affiliates and handles tracking, reporting and payouts in one account.
Instead of joining ten programs separately, you join a network such as Impact, CJ or financeAds and apply to brands inside it. Impact's Autopay minimum is $10, and both Ledger and Wirex run programs there. Compare them in the affiliate networks category.
ArbitrageurMedia buyer · Arbitrage team
A marketer who buys ad traffic and sends it to offers for profit, rather than building their own site or audience.
Arbitrageurs live by their numbers: CPC, conversion rate, EPC and ROI. In crypto they usually run CPA offers from networks through push, native, social or search ads, because quick payouts refill their ad budgets. Strict ad policies make compliance part of the job.
AttributionAttribution model
The rule that decides which affiliate gets credit for a user — for example, the last link clicked or the referral code entered at sign-up.
If a user clicks three different affiliate links before registering, attribution decides who earns. Online shops and hardware wallet brands usually rely on cookies with a last-click rule. Exchanges more often bind the user to whoever's referral code was used at registration, permanently. Hyperliquid goes further: the referral code is bound on-chain to the user's wallet.
B
Brand biddingBrand keyword bidding · Trademark bidding
Buying search ads on a brand's own name, such as 'Bitget login'. Most crypto programs ban it and can void your commissions.
Someone searching a brand's name was going to find it anyway, so the program sees no reason to pay you for that user. Bitget and BloFin both prohibit bidding on their brand terms, and PrimeXBT asks paid-search affiliates to add its brand terms as negative keywords. Breaking this rule is a common reason for bans, so check the terms before launching any PPC campaign. The compliance guide covers the other usual traps.
C
CapDaily cap · Conversion cap · Commission cap
A limit on how many conversions, or how much commission, a program will pay for in a period or per sale.
CPA offers often have daily or monthly caps, and conversions above the cap may go unpaid. Caps can also limit the payout per order: Koinly pays 20% on paid tax plans but caps it at $150 per order. Ask your manager to raise a cap before you scale traffic.
→ Offer, CPA network, CPA
CashbackCashback site · Fee cashback
Returning part of your commission to the user, for example a share of their trading fees. Some sites build their whole business on it.
In crypto, cashback usually means giving a referral back a percentage of the fees they pay. Some exchange dashboards let you set this split directly when you create a referral code. It helps conversions, but some programs treat third-party cashback offers as incentivized traffic, so read the rules first.
ChurnChurn rate
The share of users who stop trading or cancel a subscription in a period. Churn is the flip side of retention.
For subscription tools such as trading bots and tax software, churn directly cuts your recurring commission. Annual plans renew less often than monthly ones, which makes Coinrule's higher 30% rate on annual plans (against 25% on monthly) worth pushing.
CloakingAd cloaking
Showing ad reviewers or search engines different content than real users see. It breaks platform rules and gets accounts banned.
Don't confuse it with link masking, which simply turns a long affiliate URL into a short one on your own domain, such as /go/exchange. Masking is fine when the program allows redirects; cloaking ads to sneak crypto promotions past moderators violates ad policies and many affiliate agreements.
Commission tierTiered commission · Affiliate level
A level in a program's rate table. You move to a higher tier, and a higher percentage, by bringing more users, volume or revenue.
Tiers are usually measured over a rolling window. PrimeXBT's IB RevShare starts at 35% (Bronze) and rises to 55% (Elite) based on 30-day revenue and active clients, and status can be downgraded if numbers fall. Headline rates such as "up to 50%" usually describe the top tier, not what a new affiliate receives on day one.
→ RevShare, Trading volume, Affiliate manager, Sub-affiliate
Conversion rateCR · Conversion
The share of visitors who complete the target action. If 1,000 people click and 30 register, your conversion rate is 3%.
In crypto you usually track several conversion rates in a row: click to registration, registration to KYC, KYC to first deposit. A page that gets plenty of sign-ups but few deposits is attracting the wrong audience or the wrong countries. Raising CR at any step lifts your EPC without buying more traffic.
→ EPC, Funnel, FTD, Landing page
Cookie lifeCookie duration · Cookie window · Cookie length
How long after a click the program still credits you if the visitor signs up or buys. A 30-day cookie gives the user 30 days to convert.
When someone clicks your affiliate link, a small browser file (the cookie) remembers you as the referrer. If they come back and buy within the cookie life, you get the commission. Trezor uses a 30-day cookie and Ellipal a 90-day cookie for hardware wallet sales. Many exchanges don't publish a cookie length at all, because the user is tied to you through the referral code at sign-up instead.
Copy tradingSocial trading
A feature that automatically copies another trader's positions into a follower's account.
Copy trading is popular with beginners and produces steady volume, so it can drive solid RevShare. It is still risky: followers lose money when the copied trader does. Present it honestly, without profit promises or screenshots of cherry-picked returns.
CPACost per action · Cost per acquisition
A fixed one-time payment you earn when a referred user completes a set action, such as passing KYC or making a first deposit.
With CPA you get paid once per qualified user, no matter how much they trade afterwards. Crypto CPA deals rarely pay for a bare sign-up: they usually ask for completed KYC, a first deposit above a minimum or some trading volume. YouHodler, for example, offers up to $150 CPA per activated client, and PrimeXBT pays up to $1,500 per qualified trader depending on deposit size and country. See how it stacks up against ongoing models in the CPA vs RevShare vs Hybrid guide.
CPA networkCPA platform
An affiliate network focused on fixed per-action offers, often with smartlinks and frequent payouts for media buyers.
CPA networks buy results from advertisers in bulk and pass them to affiliates as offers with caps. They suit arbitrage teams that need predictable, fast money. The trade-off: you rarely get lifetime RevShare, and the network keeps a margin between what the advertiser pays and what you receive.
→ CPA, Affiliate network, Smartlink, Cap
CPCCost per click
Cost per click: what you pay an ad platform for each click. Your EPC must be higher than your CPC to make a profit.
If you pay $0.30 per click and earn $0.45 EPC, each click makes you $0.15. Crypto search CPCs can be steep because finance keywords are competitive.
CPMCost per mille · Cost per thousand impressions
Cost per mille: the price for 1,000 ad impressions. Common in display, push and native ad buying.
With CPM you pay for views, not clicks: a $2 CPM with a 0.5% CTR means each click costs you $0.40. Some crypto media sites also sell sponsored placements on a CPM basis.
→ CPC, CTR, Traffic arbitrage
CreativeCreatives · Promo materials · Banners
The ad assets you use — banners, videos, ad copy, landing pages. Programs often provide official creatives in several languages.
Official creatives are pre-approved, which saves compliance headaches. If you make your own, avoid profit promises and fake urgency, and use brand logos only as the program's guidelines allow.
CTRClick-through rate
Click-through rate: the share of people who see a link, banner or ad and click it. 1,000 views and 20 clicks is a 2% CTR.
CTR measures how appealing your creatives and calls to action are. On a review page, track CTR on each affiliate button or link to see which placements actually get clicked.
D
DCA botDollar-cost averaging bot · DCA
A bot that buys a coin in regular portions, or adds to a position as the price drops, to average out the entry price.
Dollar-cost averaging means buying a fixed amount on a schedule, such as $50 every week. DCA bots automate this or add "safety orders" during dips. Bot platforms like 3Commas, Cryptohopper and Coinrule pay recurring commission on subscriptions; compare them in trading bot affiliate programs.
Deep linkDeeplink
An affiliate link that sends the user straight to a specific page — such as a coin's buy page or a promo — instead of the homepage.
If your article is about buying Solana, a deep link to the SOL buy page converts better than the homepage. On mobile, a deep link can also open the app directly. Check that your tracking survives the redirect by testing in a fresh browser session.
E
EPCEarnings per click
Earnings per click: your total commission divided by the clicks you sent. It lets you compare offers that pay in different ways.
If 2,000 clicks earned you $500, your EPC is $0.25. EPC turns CPA, RevShare and per-sale offers into one comparable number, and it tells paid-traffic buyers the most they can pay per click and still break even. For RevShare offers, measure EPC over a long enough period, because income keeps arriving months after the click.
→ Conversion rate, CPC, ROI, LTV
F
FTDFirst-time deposit · First deposit
First-time deposit: the moment a referred user funds their account for the first time. Many CPA deals pay only after an FTD.
A sign-up costs the user nothing, so programs prefer to pay on a deposit, which shows real intent. Deals often set a minimum FTD amount, and the payout can rise with deposit size. PrimeXBT, for example, sets its CPA tier by the client's total deposits within 24 hours of the first deposit and by the client's country.
FunnelConversion funnel · Sales funnel
The steps a user goes through from first click to earning you money: click, registration, KYC, deposit, trading.
Each step loses people. If you know where they drop off — say, plenty of sign-ups but few verified accounts — you know what to fix: maybe a guide to verification, or targeting countries where the platform actually operates.
FuturesDerivatives · Perpetual futures · Perps
Contracts that let traders bet on a coin's price, often with leverage, without owning the coin. They create high volume and high risk.
Perpetual futures (perps) are the most traded crypto product, and many exchange affiliates earn most of their commission there. Leverage multiplies both volume and the chance users lose money quickly, and derivatives are restricted for retail users in several countries. If you promote futures, explain the risk plainly and check the rules in the compliance guide.
G
GEOGeography · Target country
The country your traffic comes from. Offers, payouts and legal rules all depend on the GEO.
A CPA offer can pay several times more for a depositor from one country than from another, and some programs refuse users from certain countries entirely. Crypto platforms block regions where they lack a licence or face sanctions, so traffic from those GEOs earns nothing. Match your audience's countries to the program's allowed list before you promote it.
→ Tier-1 GEOs, MiCA, FTD, Offer
Grid botGrid trading bot
A trading bot that places a ladder of buy and sell orders across a price range, aiming to profit from small moves up and down.
Grid bots are a core feature on Pionex and in tools like 3Commas. Bots trade often, so referred bot users can generate steady fee volume on exchanges, or subscription revenue on bot platforms. Bots don't guarantee profit: if the price breaks out of the grid, users can be left holding losses.
H
Hardware walletCold wallet
A small physical device that keeps crypto keys offline. Affiliates usually earn a percentage of each device sold.
Hardware wallet programs pay like online shops: Ledger pays 10% of each sale (in Bitcoin), Trezor up to 15%, and SafePal 10% rising to 20% after 100 conversions. Commission is often calculated net of VAT and shipping. Compare them in the wallet affiliate programs category and in Ledger vs Trezor.
Hold periodValidation period · Hold
Time a program waits before a commission becomes payable, to check for refunds, fraud or unmet conditions.
Software and hardware programs often hold commissions to cover refunds and returns: Koinly locks commissions for 30 days after they are earned, and CoinLedger makes them payable 30 days after they are credited. Crypto.com pays monthly after its validation period. Plan your cash flow around it.
HybridHybrid deal · CPA + RevShare
A payment model that combines a one-time CPA payment with an ongoing revenue share, usually at a lower percentage than pure RevShare.
Hybrid deals give you some cash up front and a long tail of income later. A typical structure is a fixed amount per depositing user plus a reduced share of that user's fees. PrimeXBT, for instance, offers hybrid RevShare + CPA arrangements as custom deals. Hybrids are usually negotiated with an affiliate manager once you can show steady, good-quality traffic.
I
Incentivized trafficIncent traffic · Incent
Users who sign up because you rewarded them (cash, giveaways, points) rather than because they want the product. Often banned or paid less.
Incent traffic looks good in sign-up numbers but rarely trades, so many programs forbid it or reject those users at qualification. Sharing part of your commission through an official fee-rebate setting is usually allowed; paying people to register usually is not. Check the program's allowed-traffic list before running a giveaway.
Instant exchangerCrypto swap service · Instant swap
A service that swaps one coin for another in a single step, without an exchange account or order book.
Users pick a pair, send coins and receive the other coin a few minutes later. Affiliates usually earn a share of the swap fee or a percentage of volume: Changelly offers a 50% revenue share on swaps, and ChangeNOW pays 0.4% of each completed swap's volume. Swap widgets embedded on your site can earn without sending users away.
K
KOLKey opinion leader · Crypto influencer
Key opinion leader: an influencer with an engaged audience, such as a YouTuber, an X account or a Telegram channel owner.
Exchanges court KOLs with higher rates, custom landing pages and dedicated managers. Pionex, for example, negotiates KOL rates individually instead of using its fixed inviter rates. KOLs must disclose paid relationships and avoid promising profits; regulators increasingly treat crypto promotions like financial ads.
→ Affiliate disclosure, Referral code, Affiliate manager, Traffic source
KYBKnow your business · Business verification
Know your business: company verification some programs require before paying affiliates who work through a legal entity.
KYB asks for registration documents, ownership details and sometimes proof of address. Programs with sub-affiliates or large payouts may require it — PrimeXBT, for example, allows sub-affiliates only with prior disclosure and KYC/KYB. Keep company documents ready to avoid payout delays.
KYCKnow your customer · Identity verification
Identity verification: users upload an ID (and often a selfie) before they can trade or withdraw. Many crypto commissions start only after KYC.
Regulated platforms must verify who their customers are. For affiliates KYC matters twice: your referrals often need to pass it before you earn anything, and you may need to verify yourself to get paid. Crypto.com, for example, pays commission for a set period after each referred customer completes KYC. Users who give up at the ID step are one of the biggest leaks in a crypto funnel.
→ KYB, Qualified user, FTD, Funnel
L
Landing pageLander · Pre-lander
The page a visitor lands on after clicking an ad or link. It is built to persuade them to take one action.
Programs supply official landing pages, often with a sign-up bonus, and some build co-branded pages for big partners. Affiliates also use pre-landers — their own review or comparison pages — to warm users up before sending them on. Test both: a strong pre-lander can lift your conversion rate, but it adds one more step.
Last clickLast-click attribution · Last cookie wins
An attribution rule where the affiliate whose link was clicked last before the conversion gets the full commission.
Under last click, the review that first introduced the user earns nothing if another affiliate's link is clicked just before sign-up. Bitsgap's terms, for example, say a later affiliate click overwrites the earlier one. This is why coupon and cashback sites often grab credit at the very end of the funnel, and why a strong call to action on your own page matters.
Lifetime commissionLifetime revenue share · Lifetime RevShare
You keep earning from a referred user for as long as they stay active, with no end date written into the deal.
Lifetime is the most valuable duration for RevShare. Bitget advertises up to 50% lifetime revenue share on spot and futures fees, and Coinmama pays a share of its fee on every purchase by referred users, for life. Check the small print: "lifetime" can still end if your account goes inactive or the terms change. Compare it with fixed windows such as Bitsgap's 30% of subscriptions for one year per referral.
LTVLifetime value · Customer lifetime value
Lifetime value: the total commission one referred user is expected to bring you over their whole time on the platform.
If an average referral generates $8 a month in RevShare and stays for 10 months, their LTV is about $80. Compare it with a CPA offer: if CPA pays $50 but LTV is $80, RevShare wins in the long run — provided you can wait for the money.
M
Maker-taker feesMaker fee · Taker fee
A fee model where orders that add liquidity (makers) pay less than orders that fill instantly against the order book (takers).
A limit order waiting in the order book is a maker order; a market order that executes immediately is a taker order. Taker fees are higher, so referrals who mostly use market orders generate more commission per dollar traded. It also explains why two users with the same volume can earn you very different amounts.
MiCAMarkets in Crypto-Assets · MiCA regulation
The EU's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation, which licenses crypto providers and sets rules for how crypto is marketed in the EU.
Under MiCA, crypto service providers need an EU authorisation to serve EU customers, and marketing must be fair, clear and not misleading. For affiliates targeting Europe that means promoting authorised platforms, adding risk warnings and avoiding profit promises. Practical tips are in the crypto affiliate compliance guide; this is not legal advice.
Minimum payoutPayout threshold · Minimum withdrawal
The smallest balance you must earn before the program pays you. Earnings below it usually roll over to the next period.
Thresholds range from none at all to hundreds of dollars. Paybis requires $50, Trezor €100 when paid in BTC, and Pionex has no minimum because rebates land in your account every hour. A high threshold hurts small sites most, since money can sit unpaid for months. Ledger's in-house platform even forfeits rewards older than 12 months if you never request a payout.
N
Negative carryoverNegative balance carryover · Carryover
A rule that carries a negative month into the next period, reducing your future commissions until the deficit is covered.
It mainly appears in broker and derivatives RevShare deals, where the revenue counted for you can go below zero — for example when bonuses and rebates paid to your users exceed their fees. With carryover, a minus $300 month means you earn nothing next month until $300 of positive revenue has cancelled it out. Deals with "no negative carryover" reset to zero each period, which is better for you. If the terms don't say, ask your affiliate manager in writing.
Net termsNet-30 · Net-15
Payment terms such as Net-30: the program pays within 30 days after the end of the period in which you earned the commission.
YouHodler, for example, pays Net-5 — within the first five working days of the following month — to the affiliate's YouHodler wallet. Longer net terms mean more of your money sits with the program at any given moment.
O
OfferCampaign
A specific deal you can promote: brand, payout, conversion goal, allowed GEOs and traffic sources, all in one package.
One exchange can run several offers at once: a CPA offer for one region, a RevShare offer for content sites, an app-install offer for mobile traffic. Always read the offer card for restrictions before sending traffic, because the payout only applies to the conditions listed there.
→ Advertiser, Cap, GEO, CPA network
On-rampFiat on-ramp · Off-ramp
A service that lets people buy crypto with regular money — cards, bank transfers, Apple Pay. An off-ramp does the reverse.
On-ramps like MoonPay and Paybis are often the very first step for newcomers, so they convert well on beginner content. Paybis pays 20% of its commission on every purchase by referred users, for life. More options are in the swap and on-ramp programs category.
P
Payout frequencyPayment schedule · Payout schedule
How often the program pays you: hourly, daily, weekly, monthly or on request.
Exchanges are often the fastest: MEXC settles the previous day's commission at 00:00 UTC, and BloFin settles hourly. Hardware wallet and software brands usually pay monthly after a validation period — Ellipal, for example, pays a month's commission on the 15th of the second month after it. Faster payouts improve cash flow, which matters if you buy traffic. Programs that pay in crypto are collected in affiliate programs that pay in crypto.
PostbackS2S postback · Postback URL
A server-to-server message the program sends to your tracker when a conversion happens, so you see sign-ups and deposits as they occur.
The platform calls a URL you provide and passes back data such as your SubID, the event (registration, KYC, first deposit) and sometimes the payout amount. Your tracker matches that SubID to the original click, so you can see which ad, article or keyword produced the deposit. Setup steps are in the postback and SubID tracking guide.
PPCPay per click · Paid search
Paid ads where you pay each time someone clicks, like Google or Bing search ads. Crypto ads face strict platform rules.
Major ad platforms allow crypto ads only under specific policies, often with advertiser certification, and many affiliate programs ban brand bidding. PPC can work on comparison and education keywords if your EPC beats your cost per click. Read the crypto traffic sources guide before you spend money on it.
Q
Qualified userQualified trader · Qualifying referral · Active user
A referral who meets all of the program's conditions for a payout — for example passed KYC, deposited a minimum and traded a set volume.
Programs define qualification to filter out empty sign-ups and fraud. Typical conditions are completed KYC, a minimum deposit and a minimum trading volume, all within a time window. PrimeXBT, for instance, requires CPA clients to reach a set trading volume within 365 days and also scores traffic quality. Read the exact definition before comparing CPA amounts: a bigger payout with stricter rules can earn you less.
→ CPA, FTD, KYC, Trading volume
R
RebateFee rebate · Commission rebate
A share of trading fees paid back to someone — to you as the referrer, or passed on to the user as a discount. Many exchanges call commission a rebate.
Exchanges often label affiliate commission as a rebate. Gate, for example, advertises up to an 80% long-term rebate on spot and futures fees for affiliates, and Pionex credits rebates to the inviter's account every hour. Some programs let you split your rate: keep part of it and give the rest back to your referrals as a fee discount, which can lift sign-ups.
Recurring commissionRecurring revenue share · Subscription commission
A commission paid again every time a referred customer renews a subscription — typical for trading bots and crypto tax software.
Tools like trading bots sell monthly or yearly plans, and recurring deals pay you on every renewal. Coinrule pays 25% on monthly plans and 30% on annual plans for the lifetime of the subscriber, and Cryptohopper pays 10–15% for as long as the user stays subscribed. Your income depends on churn, so products people keep using beat ones they cancel after a month. See the trading bot programs and tax software programs.
Referral codeInvite code · Promo code · Referral ID
A short code a new user enters at sign-up that permanently links their account to you, even if they never click your link.
Codes are the backbone of crypto attribution. They work in apps, videos and Telegram posts, where links get stripped or ignored. Once a user registers with your code, most exchanges bind that account to you for good, which is why cookie length matters less there. Show your code on screen and in descriptions, not only inside links. More on promoting codes in the crypto referral programs collection.
RetentionUser retention · Retention rate
The share of referred users who are still active after a period, such as 30 or 90 days. Higher retention means more RevShare.
If 100 users register and 25 still trade three months later, your three-month retention is 25%. Retention depends on audience quality: people who learned from your guides tend to stay longer than people chasing a sign-up bonus.
ROIReturn on investment
Return on investment: profit divided by what you spent. Spending $1,000 on ads and earning $1,300 back gives a 30% ROI.
ROI = (revenue − cost) ÷ cost × 100%. For RevShare offers, ROI keeps climbing for months as referrals keep trading, so judge those campaigns over a longer horizon than CPA campaigns. A negative ROI in week one is not always a failure on a lifetime deal.
→ EPC, LTV, Traffic arbitrage
S
S2S trackingServer-to-server tracking · Server-side tracking
Tracking where conversions are reported directly between servers rather than through the user's browser, so blockers can't lose them.
With S2S, a click ID is stored when the user arrives, and the program's server sends it back in a postback when that user registers or deposits. It works across apps and devices and is far more reliable than cookies or pixels. The setup is explained step by step in the tracking guide.
Self-referralSelf-referring
Signing yourself, or extra accounts you control, up through your own affiliate link to earn commission. Almost every program bans it.
Programs detect self-referrals through IP addresses, devices, KYC data and payment details. Getting caught usually means lost commission and a closed account. If you want cheaper fees on your own trading, use the platform's official VIP or fee-discount options instead.
SEOSearch engine optimization · Organic traffic
Search engine optimization: earning free, organic visitors from Google by publishing pages that rank for what people search.
Reviews, comparisons and how-to guides ("how to buy bitcoin with a card") are the classic crypto affiliate SEO pages. SEO is slow to start but compounds, and nearly every program welcomes it. The crypto affiliate website guide shows how to plan such a site.
ShavingLead shaving
When a program or network secretly under-reports your conversions to pay you less. Hard to prove, but SubIDs and postbacks help.
Warning signs include a sudden drop in conversion rate with no change in your traffic, or sign-ups your own landing page recorded that never appear in the dashboard. Keep independent records through SubIDs and S2S postbacks and compare them regularly. Reputation in affiliate communities is often the best early warning.
SmartlinkSmart link
One link that automatically sends each visitor to the best-paying offer for their country, device or behaviour.
CPA networks offer smartlinks so you don't have to pick offers by hand: a mobile visitor from one country might land on one exchange offer, a desktop visitor from another country on a different one. They are handy for broad traffic, but you lose control over which brand you are recommending.
→ CPA network, Offer, GEO
Spot tradingSpot · Spot market
Buying and selling crypto for immediate delivery — you actually own the coins you buy. The simplest kind of exchange trading.
A user who buys 0.1 BTC on the spot market holds that bitcoin and can withdraw it to a wallet. Spot traders usually trade less often than futures traders, so spot-only audiences tend to generate smaller RevShare. Some programs pay different rates by product: Pionex pays regular inviters 20% of spot fees and 15% of futures fees.
StablecoinStable coin
A crypto token pegged to a regular currency, usually the US dollar, so its price stays close to $1.
Stablecoins like USDT and USDC are the main currency of crypto trading and of many affiliate payouts. Getting paid in a stablecoin protects you from price swings between earning and withdrawing. They still carry issuer and regulatory risk, so don't treat them as a bank deposit.
Sub-affiliateSub-affiliate program · Second-tier commission · Sub-affiliate commission
An affiliate you recruit into a program. You earn an extra commission on what they bring in, on top of your own direct referrals.
Many exchanges let you invite other marketers and take a slice of their results. MEXC adds 10% of the fees from users referred by your sub-affiliates, and Paybis pays 5% on the referrals generated by webmasters you invite. The extra share normally comes from the platform, not from your sub-affiliate's earnings. The sub-affiliate programs guide explains how multi-level structures work and what to watch for.
SubIDSub ID · Click ID
An extra label you add to your affiliate link to record where a click came from — a page, banner, ad or Telegram post.
Most programs let you add one or more sub parameters to your link, for example a value like "youtube-review" or "telegram-pin". The SubID appears in the program's reports and in postbacks, so you can tell which video, article or campaign drove the sign-ups. Without SubIDs all your traffic blends into one number and you can't tell what to scale. More in the tracking guide.
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Tier-1 GEOsTier 1 countries · T1 GEOs
Wealthy, high-paying countries such as the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Western Europe. Traffic from them pays more and costs more.
Advertisers pay more for Tier-1 users because they tend to deposit and trade more. The flip side: ads cost more, competition is fierce and many crypto products are tightly regulated there. Tier-2 and Tier-3 GEOs pay less per user but are often cheaper to reach and less crowded.
TrackerAffiliate tracker · Tracking software
Software that records your clicks, SubIDs and postback conversions across all programs, so you can see the real ROI of each campaign.
Media buyers use self-hosted or cloud trackers to manage redirects, rotate landing pages and receive postbacks. Content sites can start with SubIDs and a spreadsheet, then move to a tracker once they run several programs. See the tracking guide for a setup walkthrough.
Tracking pixelPixel · Conversion pixel
A tiny invisible image or script on the confirmation page that reports a conversion through the user's browser.
Pixels are easy to install but depend on the browser, so ad blockers, privacy settings and in-app sign-ups can stop them from firing. That's why crypto programs and serious affiliates prefer S2S postbacks. Pixels are still common for ad platforms that need a conversion signal.
Trading feesExchange fees · Fee revenue
What an exchange charges per trade, usually a small percentage of the trade size. Most exchange affiliate commissions are a share of these fees.
If a user trades $10,000 at a 0.1% fee, the exchange collects $10, and a 40% RevShare gives you $4. Rates usually apply to the fees the exchange actually keeps — after discounts, vouchers and rebates — so your real cut can be smaller than the headline suggests. Fee discounts for holding the exchange's own token reduce it too.
Trading volumeVolume · Turnover
The total value of trades your referrals make. A $1,000 buy followed by a $1,000 sell adds up to $2,000 of volume.
Exchanges charge fees as a percentage of volume, so volume drives your RevShare. Programs may also use your referrals' volume to set your tier, require a minimum volume before a CPA user qualifies, or pay directly on volume: ChangeNOW pays 0.4% of the volume of every completed swap. Futures traders using leverage create far more volume per dollar deposited than spot buyers.
Traffic arbitrageMedia buying · Arbitrage
Buying ad traffic and sending it to offers, profiting from the gap between what the traffic costs and what the commissions pay.
If you pay $0.40 per click and your EPC is $0.55, you make $0.15 per click. Crypto arbitrage is tricky: ad networks restrict crypto ads and many programs ban certain sources. Arbitrage teams usually prefer CPA, because RevShare money arrives too slowly to fund the next round of ad spend.
→ Arbitrageur, PPC, EPC, ROI
Traffic sourceTraffic channel
Where your visitors come from: search, YouTube, Telegram, X, email, paid ads and so on. Programs allow some and ban others.
Programs list allowed and restricted sources in their terms, and some need approval for paid ads or messaging apps. Spread your traffic across channels so one ban or algorithm change doesn't wipe out your income. The traffic sources guide compares the main channels.
→ SEO, PPC, KOL, Incentivized traffic
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USDTTether
Tether, the largest dollar-pegged stablecoin. Many crypto affiliate programs pay commissions in USDT.
USDT runs on several blockchains, such as TRON (TRC20) and Ethereum (ERC20), and network fees differ a lot, so pick the network carefully when you withdraw. PrimeXBT, for example, pays crypto commissions in BTC or USDT on TRC20 or ERC20 with a $50 minimum. Sending to an address on the wrong network can lose the funds.
UTM tagsUTM · UTM parameters
Tags added to a link (utm_source, utm_campaign and so on) so analytics tools show where a visitor came from.
UTMs track traffic coming into your own site; SubIDs track the clicks you send out to a program. Use both: UTMs show which newsletter or post brought readers, SubIDs show which of them converted on the exchange.
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WebmasterPublisher · Affiliate
In affiliate marketing, anyone who sends traffic to offers — site owners, bloggers, YouTubers, media buyers. Also called a publisher or affiliate.
Networks often say "webmaster" where other programs say "publisher" or "affiliate", but they mean the same role. You don't need a website to be one: a Telegram channel, a newsletter or a TikTok account counts. New to the role? Start with the crypto affiliate marketing guide.
White labelWhitelabel
A product you rebrand as your own — for example a swap service or exchange running under your brand on another company's technology.
Some swap services and exchanges offer white-label solutions or widgets, so large partners can earn on transactions under their own brand. It's a step up from affiliate links: more control and revenue, but you take on customer support and often licensing duties.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between CPA and RevShare in crypto affiliate programs?
CPA pays you a fixed amount once, when a referred user completes an action such as a first deposit. RevShare pays you a percentage of the fees that user generates for as long as the deal lasts. The CPA vs RevShare vs Hybrid guide shows when each one earns more.
What does cookie life mean if exchanges use referral codes?
Cookie life is how long a click stays credited to you before the visitor converts. Many exchanges don't publish one, because the user is bound to you permanently once they register with your referral code. Cookie length matters more for hardware wallets and software subscriptions.
What is a postback and do I need one?
A postback is a server-to-server message the program sends to your tracker when someone registers or deposits. You don't need one to start, but once you run paid traffic or several campaigns it is the most reliable way to see which source actually converts. Setup is covered in the postback and SubID guide.
Why does a crypto program reject some of my referrals?
Usually because they don't count as qualified users: they skipped KYC, deposited less than the minimum, came from a restricted country, or arrived through banned traffic such as brand bidding or incentivized sign-ups. Check the affiliate agreement for the exact definition.
Is a webmaster the same as an affiliate?
Yes. Webmaster, publisher, partner and affiliate all describe the person who sends traffic to an offer, whether through a website, a YouTube channel, a Telegram group or paid ads.
Crypto Affiliate Marketing Glossary
Free to apply. Approval depends on your traffic sources and the program terms.