Glossary of Media Buyers and Affiliate Managers: 65+ Terms with Explanations
Whether you're just starting in media buying or already managing high-budget campaigns, understanding the industry's language is non-negotiable
From spy tools and scaling tactics to cloaking and compliance — the affiliate marketing world is full of terms that can make or break your strategy.
This glossary is your go-to reference for 65+ must-know terms used daily by media buyers, affiliate managers, dropshippers, and ad arbitrage pros. It's designed to help you:
- Onboard faster
- Communicate clearly with partners, networks, and team members
- Avoid rookie mistakes
- Optimize and scale like a pro
No fluff. Just straight-up explanations — so you can focus on what really matters: launching, testing, and profiting.
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Ad Account — a personal or business account inside an ad platform (like Meta Ads or Google Ads) used to run campaigns. It stores billing info, ad campaigns, team permissions, analytics, and more. Think of it as your workspace for managing ads. Types include "White", "Farmed", "Rented", and "Autoreg" accounts.
White Ad Account — a legit, verified account registered to a real person or company and operating fully within Meta's policies. Has the highest trust level but is usually unsuitable for gray / black hat activity.
Farmed Account — an account that’s manually aged: activity is simulated, some spend is added, and history is built to gain trust. Later used for launching ads.
Rented Account — a farmed ad account or Business Manager that’s leased short-term (daily / weekly / monthly). A shortcut for those who don’t have time to farm their own.
Autoreg (Auto-registered Account) — an account created using scripts or bots. Fast and cheap, but with low trust. Often considered expendable.
Business Manager (BM) — a Meta/Facebook tool for managing all advertising assets: ad accounts, Pages, Pixels, domains, catalogs, team access, and more. It's the admin panel for structured ad management.
Ad Set — the campaign level where you define your audience, placements, budget, schedule, and optimization rules. You can test different GEOs, demographics, interests, and formats here. A campaign can have several ad sets — each with different settings. This allows testing which audience or strategy works best.
Ad Creative — the actual ad the user sees (image/video + copy + CTA + headline + URL). Creatives drive engagement and performance. Even the best targeting won’t work without a strong creative.
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Pixel — a piece of tracking code installed on your site to monitor user actions. Essential for campaign optimization and conversion tracking.
Event — a specific action tracked via pixel (e.g., ViewContent, AddToCart, Purchase). A clear event structure helps with proper optimization.
CBO (Campaign Budget Optimization) & ABO (Ad Set Budget Optimization) — two Meta budgeting methods.
- CBO: budget is set at the campaign level, and the system auto-distributes spend across ad sets
- ABO: budget is set per ad set, giving you full manual control — ideal for testing.
CTR (Click-Through Rate) — the number of clicks on an ad divided by the number of impressions. High CTR = interesting creative.
CPM (Cost Per Mille) — the price for 1,000 impressions. Depends on the market, audience, placements, competition.
CPC (Cost Per Click) — the cost of one click. Usually decreases with optimization and scaling.
Conversion Rate (CR) — the percentage of users who performed the target action after clicking. High CR = well-optimized funnel.
Relevance Score / Quality Ranking — Meta’s internal assessment of your ad quality. Low score = annoying creative or mismatched landing page.
Quality Ranking — how high-quality your creative looks compared to others.
Engagement Rate Ranking — how eagerly people interact (like, comment, save).
Conversion Rate Ranking — how well the ad converts compared to competitors with the same target action.
Ratings are Above Average / Average / Below Average. Higher ratings lead to cheaper CPMs and better performance.
Learning Phase — the initial phase after launching or editing ads when the advertising system (e.g., Meta) gathers data to optimize delivery.
During this period, the platform:
- Tests different audiences.
- Searches for whom to show the ad.
- "Learns" how to achieve your goal (e.g., purchases or clicks).
The phase continues until the ad set collects about 50 target events (e.g., conversions). During the Learning Phase, results may be unstable and more expensive. The advertiser's task is not to touch the ad during this period, otherwise, the phase will reset, and the system will "learn" from scratch.
Scaling — increasing the budget, cloning the combos, launching new GEOs, CBO, etc. The key is to scale without killing performance.
Lookalike Audience (LAL) — an audience similar to existing customers or traffic. Only works if there are data and conversions.
Custom Audience (CA) — your own audiences: retargeting, email lists, website visitors, Instagram users.
Broad Targeting — a targeting strategy without narrow filters. In 2025, Meta pushes broad targeting as a powerful approach, driven by its algorithm.
PPE (Page Post Engagement) — campaign objective focused on likes, comments, shares. Often used to warm up creatives before launching conversion campaigns.
Spy Tool — a tool for monitoring competitors’ ads and funnels. Must-have in 2025. Dropshippers, affiliate marketers, targeting specialists, agencies – everyone uses them.
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Angle — the unique perspective or “wrapper” used to sell a product. One product can be positioned in many different ways.
Presell / Prelander — a page between the creative and the main landing page. Its purpose is to warm up the audience, increase conversion, or bypass moderation.
Cloaking — a deceptive technique where Meta sees one thing and users see something else. A gray/black practice. Not advised but widely used.
Compliance — meeting Meta’s ad policies. Ads must not mislead, violate terms, or contain banned claims or manipulative copy. Failing compliance leads to bans or limited reach. Good compliance = knowing how to pass moderation or bypass it subtly. Compliance is about playing by the rules.
Ban / Flag / Restriction — the main pain points for a media buyer. They can be lifted through appeals, or bypassed through farming or multi-accounts.
- Ban — complete blocking of an ad account, business manager, page, or even a personal profile. You can no longer launch ads or even log into the account.
- Flag — a warning signal. A sign that something suspicious is happening: too many actions, suspicious creatives, unusual activity. A flag is not yet a ban, but the account may fall under scrutiny or lose trust.
- Restriction — limitation of functions, not a complete ban. For example, you can’t launch new campaigns, submit complaints, or temporarily advertise.
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First Bill — the first successful charge from your payment method. Often $1–$5 to confirm the card is valid. After this, ads start running. “First billers” exploit this to launch on credit and dump the account/card afterward — a gray tactic. The idea is to run ads using the platform's credit, and then the account, payment card, or other resources are simply discarded or replaced. This allows running ads almost for free without paying for traffic. First billers only spend money on resources (trusted accounts, cards, IPs, etc.) but not on traffic.
This is a gray or black method considered fraudulent. Because of such schemes, platforms conduct stricter checks on new accounts, ban legitimate advertisers, and decrease trust in virtual cards.
GEO — country where traffic is targeted. For example, Tier-1 (USA, Canada), Tier-2 (Europe), Tier-3 (Asia, LatAm). CPM, CR, and ban rates depend on the GEO.
Placement — where the ad appears: feed, stories, IG, FB Marketplace, Audience Network. Meta often mixes placements automatically.
Campaign Optimization — setting up a campaign to achieve better results with lower costs. Adjustments are made to creatives, audiences, bidding strategies, daily budget, etc.
Multi-Account — an approach where you have dozens or even hundreds of accounts across different BMs, profiles, proxies. It provides stability when accounts are banned but requires infrastructure.
Proxy — alternate IP used to access accounts safely. Can be mobile, residential, or datacenter. Helps avoid bans from unusual logins.
Affiliate Network — platform that provides offers and handles tracking, payouts, and support. There are thousands of affiliate networks: some work with nutrition, others with e-commerce, gambling, dating, etc.
Offer — the product or service being promoted. Examples: weight loss pills, dating app, e-comm gadget.
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Tracker — analytics tool like Keitaro, Binom, or Voluum. Tracks which traffic source, creative, or GEO converts best.
Postback — a mechanism for passing conversion information from the affiliate network to your tracker or Meta. It is configured to prevent data loss.
Cap — limit on daily conversions allowed by the offer or affiliate network. Once reached, further conversions don’t count.
Hold — a delay before payout, used by affiliate networks to verify traffic quality. Usually 7–30 days.
Approve (Approval Rate) — the percentage of approved leads out of all received. High approval rate = quality traffic.
Revshare — a payment model from the affiliate network where you receive a percentage of the client's profit instead of a fixed fee per lead. More risky, but more profitable in the long run.
Lead / Conversion — a user who completes the desired action (e.g., sign-up, sale). What you get paid for.
Running / Pouring / Launching Ads — running traffic to an offer. Example: “We’re running Nutra on FB using farmed accounts.”
Burning Out — when a creative/account/offer stops working. Either banned, too expensive, or no longer converts.
Ban Rate — the frequency of account bans. If the ban rate is high, it could mean poor farming, bad creatives, or Facebook being particularly “nervous” today.
Combo — the winning combo of offer + creative + audience + landing page + platform. Once it works, it’s scaled. If not, test new variations.
Classic combo includes:
- Offer — what is being promoted (product, service, subscription).
- Creative — what the user sees (video, banner, text).
- Audience / Targeting — who exactly sees the ad.
- GEO — the country or region of display.
- Landing Page — where the ad leads (website, quiz, form).
- Platform — where the ad is launched (Facebook, TikTok, Google, etc.).
Bundle — same as a combo.
Test / Testing — initial launch phase to validate an idea. . Example: "Tested 5 creatives, only one worked."
Feedback from Support — the response from an affiliate network manager or Meta account manager. Can determine your campaign’s future.
Bypass — any method to bypass moderation, rules, or restrictions. Examples include cloaking, redirects, etc.
Placeholder — a temporary landing page or site shown to moderators instead of the real site. Part of cloaking.
Account Grade / Account Rating — a subjective assessment of the account's quality.
Daily — daily budget. For example, "Daily was $100, raised it to $300."
Manual Control — manual management of a campaign.
Auto Bid — an automatic bidding strategy on Facebook. Convenient but not always accurate. The opposite is Manual Bid, where you set the bid yourself and have more control over the process.
Affiliate Program — same as an affiliate network.
Drilling — deeply testing something (GEO, audience, interest, angle).
Pouring in Profit / Loss — evaluating whether a campaign is profitable or running at a loss after ad spend.
Tier — a classification of countries based on purchasing power and traffic quality. For example:
- Tier 1 — wealthy countries with high purchasing power: USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Germany, etc. Expensive but high-quality traffic.
- Tier 2 — medium-level countries: Mexico, Poland, Brazil, Thailand, Israel, etc. Cheaper traffic, but lower purchasing power.
- Tier 3 — countries with the lowest CPM and CPC: India, Philippines, Bangladesh, Egypt, etc. Cheap traffic, but low quality.
Hook — the first few seconds or lines that grab attention. Can be shocking, curious, emotional, or visually unusual. The purpose of the hook is to stop scrolling and make the person watch/read further. Without a strong hook, even a good offer may fail.
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