A lead is a potential customer who has completed a specific action that the advertiser is willing to pay an affiliate for. In affiliate marketing, leads are the core of your earnings — this is what your payouts are based on.
It’s important to understand that a lead isn’t just someone who clicked your link or saw your ad. A lead is someone who shows real interest and takes a concrete action, for example:
- Filling out a form for a loan or insurance.
- Registering on a website and confirming their email.
- Placing an order or making a purchase.
- Subscribing to a paid online course.
This action is pre-defined in the offer terms and is called a Cost Per Action (CPA).
How to tell a lead from a regular click:
Affiliate marketing uses specific tech for this:
- Cookies — markers in the user’s browser that store info about their click on your link.
- Trackers — systems that follow user actions and link them back to you as the affiliate.
If the user completes the required action within the cookie’s validity period, the system counts it as a lead and records it for your payout.
Key points to remember:
- A lead must be a new user for the advertiser; otherwise, it won’t count.
- Different offers may have different rules and cookie durations.
- You only get paid for leads that meet all the offer’s requirements.