Partnerships Glossary

Noun

[ah-fill-ee-it part-nur]

Affiliate partners are partnerships that drive traffic to your properties through tracked links and earn a cut when that traffic converts. Affiliate partners are a subset of marketing partners.

An affiliate partner can be a business, an individual, or another affiliate program. Affiliate partnerships can expand your company's reach and increase revenue through increased exposure and marketing reach.

Also see: Marketing partner, affiliate link

Noun

[aff-ill-ee-it ly-nk]

‍An affiliate link is tool used in affiliate marketing programs. A unique link is assigned to an affiliate partner by a partner program. When a website user clicks on the link, that click is attributed to the affiliate partner. The link contains the affiliate's ID or username to enable tracking. This means that traffic sent by the affiliate can be recorded (and rewarded).

If the person that clicks the link later converts (for example, by purchasing the software) then that conversion is also attributed to the affiliate partner.

Example: Connectco signed up for Razor's affiliate program and was assigned an affiliate link. Their link got 20,000 clicks each month, meaning a nice payout for Connectco.

Noun

[in-dee-pen-dint sohft-ware venn-der]

An independent software vendor (ISV) creates, markets, and sells software that runs on one or more computer operating systems (OS) or cloud platforms. In other words, an ISV is a company that distributes its own software. ISVs often distribute their software on marketplaces. Hardware providers, operating systems, and cloud platforms can all offer ISVs on their marketplace, but they'll only accept, or ISV certify, the ones with the best or most relevant software.

Independent software vendors build software for human use, which distinguishes them from original equipment manufacturers (OEM) who normally develop software for backend use. Computer hardware and operating system companies (for example, Microsoft, Apple, and Google) often include ISVs in special partnership programs. This is because the more applications that can run on a platform, the more value it can generate for the platform provider.

When it comes to cloud computing, ISVs often sell their software on a software as a service (SaaS) basis, through platforms like SalesForce AppExchange and Microsoft Azure.

Example: Joino developed its own software, which was ISV certified on Amazon Web Services (AWS). AWS sold the software to end users, and Joino enjoyed a healthy profit.