LEADGEN, SOI, DOI, SWEEPS, NUTRA … What does all of this mean? Offer types explained! (11)
LEADGEN, SOI, DOI, SWEEPS, NUTRA … What does all of this mean? Offer types explained!
The affiliate business, just like any other business for that matter, uses it's own vocabulary and every aspiring affiliate needs to learn at least the basic terms in order to crack the code. We already have a glossary of abbreviations and acronyms on the forum, but I think it's about time to update it, add some things and explain some in a more detailed way. I will also focus not just on abbreviations but include affiliate terms and vocabulary.
Check the old one here : http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...n-the-IM-World
I wanted to write one large thread with all the terms explained, but since there are too many, I decided to divide them into multiple threads. This first one will deal with the OFFERS.
OFFER – this is the product you will promote, it can be a tangible product or a service.
LEAD – Lead is a prospective buyer of a product or service. For example – you register for free at some dating site, so now you are a LEAD that showed interest into meeting new people.
LEADGEN – Offers that collect some kind of information about the customer in exchange for some benefit or access to a service. Majority of all OFFERS are actually LEADGEN offers, this means we the affiliates are delivering future customers (LEADS) to advertisers based on certain criteria they specify – interests, age groups, niche/vertical.
SOI – Single Opt In – these offers require 1 action from the user to be completed. Usually it is filling out a form or entering an email address.
DOI – Double Opt In – these offers require more than 1 action from the user to be completed. Originally, this concept required to enter and email address (1.step) and then clicking a confirmation link in the “welcome” email (2.step). These days there can be more requirements, for example filling out a profile, defining interests, uploading a photo etc …
PPS – Pay Per Sale – These offers pay a straight amount of $$$ per conversion.
REVSHARE – These offers will pay you certain % of a sale. These are often REBILLS or ECOMMERCE offers.
MAINSTREAM/ADULT – basic qualifications that determines if an offer can be promoted to adult traffic or not. Adult traffic is traffic on porn/erotic sites.
VERTICAL – this is the type/category that an offer falls into, sometimes the term NICHE is used too. An example of a vertical would be : app installs, dating, sweeps …
ECOMMERCE – this is basically a large VERTICAL that deals with tangible products. So pretty much any e-shop falls into this category. Two most popular platforms used by affiliates are
REBILLS – this can be a wide range of products across many verticals, both tangible and service/info products. The basis principle is a repeating charge to the customer. The billing cycle often starts with a free/trial membership and then recurs at a set rate every 30 days for example.
NUTRA – another large VERTICAL, these are health suplements, diet, vitamins, skincare products etc… There are also ADULT products in this vertical – muscle, penis pills … NUTRA offers can be a straight sale or REBILL based.
SWEEPS – products that give the user a chance to win something. The most popular prizes these days are iPhones and other smartphones or shopping vouchers. SWEEPS can be either LEADGEN (SOI or DOI) or PIN Submit offers.
DATING – One of the evergreen VERTICALS, dating can be both MAINSTREAM and ADULT. These are mostly SOI/DOI LEADGEN Offers - users get free access to the members area, but when they want to contact someone they need to pay a monthly fee. So the dating business model is actually based on REBILLS. These offers are also available as REVSHARE or PPS.
APP INSTALLS – this is a mobile vertical, conversion happens when the user downloads some application for their smartphone. There can be more requirements like : open the app, use it for some time… Apps can be downloaded both from official stores like google play or apple appstore or from alternative stores for android.
CONTENT BILLING – these offers give the paying user access to some members area when they can download some content, usually videos, ring tones, wallappers or games.
PIN SUBMITs – These are primarily aimed at mobile phone users, because the billing is done via premium SMS charges. That's why they are also called CARRIER BILLING offers. This is a very popular billing method covering a wide range of VERTICALs and all kinds of offer categories. These can be SWEEPS, APP INSTALLS, ANTIVIRUS …
1 Click/ 2 Click / MO Flow – These are all PIN SUBMIT offers, but all with a different registration/subscription process. “1-Click” takes just 1 click on the Agree button, “2-Click” is like a DOI so one more confirmation is needed. MO-Flow means you have to type the SMS yourself and manually send it to some premium number. 1-Click converts the best, MO is the worst.
SURVEYS – these are similar to SWEEPS, sometimes they are actually mixed into one. So the user has to fill out a survey in order to get a chance to win something. The original SURVEY offers compensate the users for their time with a small payment. The payment serves as an INCENTIVE for the users to actually mess with the SURVEY form.
INCENTIVE – This is a specific approach to getting user engagement. These offers actually give something to the users to make them do something in return. The compensation can be a small payment, some freebie or some virtual currency. Virtual currencies are widely used these days, since the rise of mobile games. I'm sure you have seen this many times in form of watching an ad in exchange for a few diamonds, or downloading some application to get some gold nuggets in the game you were playing … the options are endless. Offers based on INCENTIVES usually pay less and such “traffic” is of lower quality.
INFO PRODUCTS – Clickbank network is a typical representative of the INFO PRODUCT vertical. They have e-books and guides for pretty much everything you can think of. These products are mostly using the REVSHARE or PPS payouts model.
PUA – Pick Up Artist – this is a specific category within the INFO PRODUCT vertical. These are usually promoted with quite funny VSL (Video Sales Letter), so I think they are worth mentioning just because of that 
This products are ADULT in nature and used to work well on adult sites.
GAMBLING/CASINO – another huge VERTICAL that is also ADULT friendly. I don't think it needs more commentary.
PAY PER CALL (PPC) - These offers pay for each phone-call that meets some conditions - usually certain duration, so the prospect might not hang up sooner than a given amount o seconds. These can be all kinds of LEADGEN type offers resulting in the sale of some product/service or a "premium number" call, that bills the user per minute - these are the infamous TECH SUPPORT offers for example.
I think I will end this list here for now, there are certainly more that I could write about but many are self explanatory, for example SOLAR, INSURANCE, FOREX … so I don't think they need any clarification.
I'm by no means trying to claim this to be the most complete list as of now, so if you think I missed something PLEASE DO POST about it and I will happily add it. In case you disagree with something, please post it too so I can correct any possible mistakes
Wow! This definitely is worth printing out!
Another great, informative post matuloo! I will be directing all our affiliate newbies here that's for sure 
Originally Posted by grandslam
Next part will be about traffic and traffic sources.
Thread moved to the newbie section, I think it fits here better 
This is handful info for any newbie, sending it out to all our affiliates, hope you dont mind ? Thanks Matuloo
Originally Posted by digitalraves
I just posted second part of the vocab/definitions, this time it's about traffic types, you can read it here : http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ocab-explained
Thanks very useful to know
...and this was one of the few puzzles I wasn't finding. Awesome info!
Awesome post!
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